Boundaries is a site-specific, multimedia installation by Cave Dogs that investigates how physical environments and man-made structures shape community, culture, and identity. Through a dynamic interplay of light, shadow, sound, and movement, the work invites viewers to reflect on the visible and invisible boundaries that influence how we live, connect, and remember.

Using sculptures, props, found objects, and original sound compositions, Boundaries transforms the space into a living canvas of shifting shadows and projected imagery. A customized electric train—outfitted with high-lumen LED lights—circulates through the installation, casting moving patterns of light and dark. This kinetic element serves both as a source of dynamic shadow play and as a metaphor for westward expansion, symbolizing the disruptive impact of railroads on landscapes, cultures, and communities.

The installation will also feature intermittent video projections and a layered soundscape of spoken word, ambient sound, and potentially live audio, ensuring that the visual and auditory experience remains in constant flux. Content will draw from both historical and contemporary perspectives, addressing topics such as land use, eminent domain, cultural identity, sustainability, and collective memory.

About the artist: Cave Dogs brings together visual artists, musicians, dancers, and storytellers in the spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration. We create site specific installations informed by place and community. The installations are an assemblage of kinetic sculpture, video projection, moving light and sound. Cave Dogs are also known for their performance work. Performances consist of innovative, large-scale shadow projections cast onto a screen from sculptures, props, costuming and the human body, in concert with projected video imagery, spoken narrative, and an original soundtrack. The shadow medium evolves out of two ancient traditions: shadow puppet theatre and storytelling - and several contemporary art forms including film, video, sound, computer-generated animation and performance and installation art. Our influences include an eclectic mix of arts, humanities, and sciences. In all our work we strive to create multiple, richly layered visual tableaus and effects that conjure both the dreamlike quality of early experimental film and the humor of contemporary animation. The imagery and sound weave together to create a rich multi-media artifact that documents, celebrates, and preserves important cultural voices, social identities, and environmental perspectives.   

Each Cave Dogs project promises a healthy dose of the sublime, the exciting, the absurd and the downright fun that results in something infinitely compelling. It’s magical, like watching dreams cross into the conscious world. We strive to create a stimulating experience that documents and celebrates important cultural voices, social identities, and environmental perspectives. We attract a diverse audience with varying levels of experience with art and installation. For us, installation work offers opportunities to adapt to our environment and audience and gain new and vital perspectives on our work. The dialog between audience and artist is one that we hope to nourish. We invite the audience into our spaces to see our props and speak with us and interact with the props and lighting effects to help demystify our shadowy illusions.