Simulation: Magic Lantern
Featured here is a shadow play inspired by a remarkable life. You may recognize its author, a famous and infamous Venetian. His name is Casanova. Exiled from his homeland to a gloomy corner of Bohemia, Casanova spent his last years in the castle of Dux, where he served as librarian. In his old age and isolation he wrote feverishly, turning out thousands of pages of a monumental memoir to set the record straight and relive his life in the process. We imagine he found, hidden away in a closet, a magic lantern. With it he projects on a wall the painted glass slides that he has collected during his travels, the ghostly mementos of his adventures. His only spectator is young Dorothea, a housemaid of the castle. He calls her Dorina. At night the library at Dux turns into their private camera obscura, and Casanova’s memories slowly turn into a vision, a phantasmagoria, a virtual journey to the bottom of the ocean, his last escape from the prison of space and time.
