Noctilucence // 2025

11 minute VR experience and real-time interactive installation exploring shadow work through an ominous desert landscape.

Noctilucence invites viewers into a dreamlike virtual desert where the unseen aspects of the self are externalized through an evolving, surreal world. Drawing from the practice of shadow work; confronting and integrating repressed emotions, the piece transforms inner tension into an otherworldly visual journey. What begins as an ominous landscape of dark forms and grotesque organisms slowly transitions toward light and harmony, symbolizing the process of acceptance and transformation.

At the heart of the environment drifts a luminous fluid entity, its slow, hypnotic movement synchronized with a meditative sound bath composed by sound healer Lorri Clark. This audio-visual dialogue grounds the viewer, encouraging introspection and release. Water, an element of healing and emotional resonance, becomes the symbolic catalyst for transformation and renewal. Noctilucence suggests that through self-compassion, a healed and grounded inner world is the first step toward extending care to the natural world and beyond.

Developed in Unreal Engine with animations created in Blender.

Words and Audio by Lorri Clark.

Produced during a residency with CYENS Thinker Maker Space in Nicosia, Cyprus. Supported by EDAA.

Over the course of the piece, the environment transforms to integrate the haunting dark forms into the light, nourished by healing waters, symbolic of the inner transformation of shadow work.

The shadow refers to the Jungian concept of the unconscious self shaped by repressed or shamed aspects. Shadow work is the practice of confronting and integrating these parts to move toward inner wholeness.

At the center of the project is a water altar that delivers guided affirmations. In VR, approaching the altar reveals an affirmation above. In the accompanying installation, a 3D-printed altar activates an affirmation on screen when touched.