Sister Sylvester & Deniz Tortum
Shadowtime
Virtual Reality / Film
‘Shadowtime’ is a word drawn from a new lexicon for the anthropocene. It is the feeling of occupying two irreconcilable times simultaneously. Making breakfast for a child, while knowing that in that child’s lifetime a species of flower that has existed for millennia has gone extinct. Driving to try and make work on time it occurs to you that the gas in your engine is the compressed bones of prehistoric creatures.
Shadowtime takes these temporal incompatibilities and explores them in the realm of virtual reality and simulation theory. To exist in the virtual world is to have two bodies, four hands, two hearts—to exist in two worlds at the same time. Alma, a mysterious guide to this double world, leads you through questions around climate crisis, grief, and the provocation of the virtual as a retreat or shelter, or as a place from which to come to learn how to be in two places, two times, simultaneously.
The Dark: PS21’s fearless winter festival of live performance radiating across Columbia County
The Dark is a new annual festival from PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance that celebrates and elevates the depths of winter. Taking place February 16–22, 2026, the festival will unfold at PS21 and across Columbia County—in theatres, restaurants, libraries, saunas, and outdoor public spaces. Featuring more than 60 international artists and over 80 performances, The Dark offers a packed week of world-class contemporary performance, installation, music, dance, and theatre—all exploring winter as a time of community and solitude, fire and ice, darkness and light. A major new attraction for the region, the festival positions Columbia County as a year-round cultural destination—not just a summer one.
It is a light in the dark—and The Dark is the light.
Secure your Festival Pass to The Dark now which includes tickets to every performance along with a complimentary sauna and ice skating session!
Synopsis
‘You are in two worlds at the same time. Your body is in the other world, but your heart is in this one.’
To exist in the virtual world is to have two bodies, four hands, two hearts. Alma, a mysterious guide to this double world, leads you through questions around the climate crisis, irreconcilable realities, and the virtual as a place to take shelter.
Main Creator’s brief comment on the immersive project
‘Shadowtime’ is a new word coined for our age, describing the feeling of occupying two irreconcilable times simultaneously. It is being stuck in a traffic jam on your way to work and realizing that the gas in your engine is the compressed mass of prehistoric creatures. It is scrolling through your phone and remembering that the earth is changing irrevocably. In ‘Shadowtime’, we take these temporal incompatibilities and explore them in the realm of virtual reality and simulation theory.
sister sylvester is a multimedia artist and amateur microbiologist. Her installation work Constantinopoliad (‘24), premiered at CPH:DOX where it won the INTER:ACTIVE prize and toured to the Venice International Film Festival as part of the Best of Festivals selection. Her work Drinking Brecht: An Automated Laboratory Performance (‘24) premiered at IDFA and continues to tour internationally including to Open City and Thessaloniki Film Festivals. In collaboration with Deniz Tortum she created the VR documentary Shadowtime, (’23) which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and toured to IDFA, GIFF, Thessaloniki Film Festival and SXSW; and the film Our Ark which premiered at IDFA (’21) and has screened at festivals internationally. In her live work she creates visual essays and books that become performances, spatial narratives that play with spoken and written text to create communal reading experiences. Recent works include: Constantinopoliad, with a live-score by Nadah El Shazly, commissioned by the Onassis Foundation, and premiered at National Sawdust in NYC (‘23) as a site specific work in the Onassis Library, Athens, and at the Internationaal Theater of Amsterdam; The Eagle and The Tortoise, which showed as a work-in-progress at National Sawdust NYC, and premiered at Frascati Theater, Amsterdam, as a part of IDFA On Stage (‘22), and in NYC as part of Under The Radar 2024.
She is a 2025 Creative Capital fellow, a current resident at ONX Studio; a 2025 Yaddo Fellow; a 2019 MacDowell Fellow; an alumnus of the Public Theater New Works program and CPH:DOX lab. She co-teaches a bio-art class at Colorado College, and has also taught and lectured at MIT, Princeton, UCCS, Columbia University, and Boğaziçi, Istanbul.
Her work has been called ‘genuinely subversive’ by Time Out NY; ‘imaginative and original’ by New York Times; ‘perplexing’ by Theaterscene, ‘apocalyptic’ by Artforum, and an ‘otherworldly, intimate, off-kilter, queer artistic orgasm’ by Life Magazine, Greece.
Deniz Tortum (Istanbul, 1989) works in film and immersive media. His latest film, “Our Ark” (co-directed with Sister Sylvester, 2021), premiered at IDFA and screened internationally; and his feature documentary, “Phases of Matter” (2020), premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and received the Best Documentary awards at the Istanbul and Antalya Film Festivals. He is currently developing a series of work around geoengineering, spiritism, and the climate crisis.
Writer/Directors: Sister Sylvester, Deniz Tortum
Sound engineer Music: Alican Çamcı
Performer: Rawya El Chab as Alma
Video/projection designer Lead Developer: Sjoerd van Acker
Visual artist 3D Artist: Bats Bronsveld, AI Artist: Arjan van Meerten, Installation Artist: Doruk Çiftçi, Communication Design: Luiz Risi, Depthkit Advisor: Akmyrat Tuyliyev
Producers: Firat Sezgin, Ecegül Bayram (Institute of Time)
Supporters: Netherlands Film Fonds, Stimuleringsfonds, ONX Onassis
The Dark is supported through a Market New York grant, awarded to PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance from Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, New York State’s Division of Tourism.
Digital content coverage for The Dark is supported by Bloomberg Connects.
The Dark‘s business sponsors are Millay Arts and The Mountains Media.
Thank you to the many generous individual supporters who helped fund The Dark.
PS21’s programs are made possible in part with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
While this performance does not have reserved seating, we are happy to accommodate any specific accessibility needs.
Please reach out to Adriana at boxoffice@ps21chatham.org, and she will coordinate with our front-of-house team to ensure your experience is comfortable and enjoyable.
