Plato's Shadow's

Please read up on the basic Allegory here:
http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

"The Allegory of the Cave –  is an allegory used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate "our nature in its education and want of education" (514a)." 

"Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality.  He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave Mar.10

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Notes on Plato's Allegory of the Cave for our artmaking: 
That the allegory describes a process of discovery.

That knowledge of ideas starts as shadow perception.

That the shadows are taken as reality but are in fact something cast - are a projection constructed by 'real' objects, and the light cast towards them.   

The form of the shadows depends on how the light is cast—point of view, while comprehension and understanding are enhanced by favourable projections.
Within the allegory, opportunity exists to move past shadow awareness, which in Plato’s case is a kind of false awareness, by thinking past a situation, and taking action. 

And for our purposes, keep in mind that the objects in the Allegory are in fact constructs--as all made things are, and that this could mean that there is in fact no true form(actual object or Platonic ideal), to realize or enslave us in ignorance, but can instead ask us to decide from our own possibilities(point of view or what we know) useful and relevant ideas. This could be called reaction, or empowerment :)