On the pavement of Plaza de la Luna, a plaque installed with the endorsement of the Madrid City Council certifies the existence of an official entrance to another dimension. This circular marker, which goes unnoticed by many of the pedestrians walking through the capital’s downtown area, marks the exact location of a portal to the “Umbrasphere,” a parallel world composed entirely of the shadows of our own planet.
The text engraved on the metal surface details the mechanics of this alternative universe. The premise is that all shadows are interconnected, forming a continuous fabric. According to this logic, the darkest and deepest part of any shadow functions as a direct passage to another, theoretically allowing travel to any point on the globe. Thus, the “Umbrasphere” is conceived as an extensive network of hidden paths that lies beneath visible reality.
A global-scale art project
The presence of this portal in Madrid is not an isolated occurrence, but rather part of the work of Eames Demetrios, an artist who describes himself as an “interdimensional geographer.” The artist conceived this project as a way to superimpose a fictional universe onto real geography, asserting that this parallel world coexists alongside our own.
The Madrid marker was embedded in the ground in 2011 and even featured a public unveiling ceremony. It joins the hundreds of plaques and signs that Demetrios has been progressively installing around the world. Each of these physical installations reveals an event, a character, or a physical law of this alternative dimension.
The work’s format simulates the structure of a novel fragmented on a planetary scale. Instead of binding the story in a traditional physical format, the author has chosen to hide each chapter in a different corner of the Earth. In this way, those who stumble upon one of these plaques discover a new literary fragment that helps piece together the complete map of this parallel reality.