The doctoral project Darkness as Material examines darkness as material and its relationship to cinematic storytelling. The study addresses different kinds of darkness: darkness in the image, darkness in the cinema theatre, darkness in the spectator where films are received and the darkness in the filmmaker, where the world is reflected and ideas are born.
The project is inspired by Marguerite Duras' idea to kill cinema, and it explores film's potential to approach the place she described as the dark room, where we are deaf and blind and passion is possible.
The research has manifested in two feature length films: Hypermoon and Secrets of the Sun. The films share the exact same soundtrack, but Hypermoon is a film with images whilst Secrets of the Sun is a film without images, where darkness replaces image as a visual narrative element.
The project also consists of various written essays on darkness, which are gathered in the publication Darkness as material.