Shadows

“Shadows” is an audiovisual transdisciplinary artwork composed by Deniz Çağlarcan that uses a selection of unique oil paintings from Güneş Çağlarcan’s “Shadow Collection” as compositional material. The “Shadow Collection” explores the fascination with how humans are socially connected. Although each person possesses a wide palette of unique characteristics, people constantly seek connections with one another. The relationship between social status and mental state is reflected in varying levels of social connection, which have become the overall form of the paintings, while individual and distinct human gestures construct its texture. The collection emerges from various perceptual filters that affect how humans interpret visual input. The brain decodes clusters of oil paint as body parts, movement, clothing, and shadows. Once filtered by human perception, these figures evoke unfinished or imaginary stories, sorrows, past experiences, and unique journeys finding their place within the “Shadow Collection”.

The visual music piece “Shadows” adds a multi-layered structure to an already dense artwork. Çağlarcan filters the original paintings through his own aesthetic perception, highlighting specific elements. He augments small figures to magnify details that the audience will further decode, constructing meaning through their own perception. A formal narrative is presented through the selection and sequencing of specific paintings from the “Shadow Collection.” The gestural relationships in the piece are constructed using a Schaefferian approach: gestures are connected by their syntactical content and unique morphological characteristics, while the extracted figures establish a broader semantic context. Through this journey, guided by selected images and formal structure, the spiritual connection between people, the decisions we make throughout our lives, and the impartial judgment of their consequences are emphasized, while filters based on each viewer’s past experiences guide them on a personal spiritual journey. 

Deniz Çağlarcan (b. 1992, Istanbul) is a Santa Barbara based composer, violist, conductor, and transdisciplinary artist whose work explores the interaction between acoustic instruments, electronic sound, and visual media. His artistic practice integrates electroacoustic composition, spatial audio, and audiovisual technologies to create immersive environments that blur the boundaries between sound, image, and performance. In addition to concert music, his work also includes electroacoustic, audiovisual, and installation-based projects as well as music for film and video games.

His works have been presented internationally at venues and festivals including the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, L’Espace du Son International Acousmatic Festival (Brussels), Taneycomo Festival, and the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC). Recent honors include the Prix CIME 2025 Residency Award, First Prize at the Corwin Awards for Excellence in Composition, Second Prize at the American Viola Society Maurice Gardner Composition Competition, and the Grand Prize at the Indiana State University MusicNow Competition. A prize winner of the Golden Classical Music Awards, he will perform at Carnegie Hall in New York in June 2026.

Inspired by the paintings of his brother Güneş Çağlarcan, he created the audiovisual work Shadows and founded the Shadows Contemporary Art Festival, an interdisciplinary platform bringing together composers, visual artists, and media creators.

Çağlarcan holds an M.M. in Viola Performance from Central Michigan University and an M.A. in Composition from Bilkent University. He also earned an M.S. in Media Arts & Technology (with Curtis Roads) and a Ph.D. in Composition (with João Pedro Oliveira) from the University of California, Santa Barbara.