This thesis is inspired by my practice, which involves two kinds of work: firstly, videos based on mobile objects constructed by me, which produce shadow-play, secondly, videos based on the shadow-play observed in the everyday environment. Light and shadow, being the source of images in my work, inspire in turn reflection on their relation to matter. This reflection is led by such concepts as the Neoplatonic idea of light as a source of matter developed by the Medieval metaphysics of light, the tradition of mystical light in the Byzantine icon, the animistic tradition of shadow theatre, shadow as a visualisation of higher dimensions of space, contemporary concept of the light–matter relationship, Henry Bergson’s idea of the universe as metacinema, and Kazimir Malevich’s writings on Black Square and commentary on his Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918). To contextualize my work, I use Arabesque (1929) by Germaine Dulac, Pharmacy (1930) by Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, and Wavelength (1967) by Michael Snow), in which the motifs of light and shadow occur in such a way that they create visual and intellectual link to my own works. I juxtapose these films with still works, namely: Wavelength – with Snow’s Walking Woman (1961-1966) and Atlantic (1967); abstract images in Arabesque – with Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915); and Pharmacy – with Jerzy Nowosielski’s Still Life (1986) and Portrait (1978). The rationale behind this strategy is that film criticism has worked out medium-specific concepts of light and shadow, different from those developed around these two motifs in traditional, static art. However, the exclusion of the centuries-long tradition of the presence of light and shadow in art and philosophy leads to a reductionist perspective. So, to give a broader reading, I analyse the abovementioned films from the two points of view: that of critical commentary developed around these motifs not only in film but also around still works, and from the perspective of my own practice. To do this, I use two styles of narration: academic and poetic, to reflect two different approaches: historical-critical and affective. In effect, I argue for Wavelength as a work concerning the whole of reality, transcending the definition of structural film and revealing a poetic character. Nowosielski’s painterly works – so far commented on from the vantage point of their relation to the Byzantine icon, thanks to this research reveal their pagan, animistic threads. Pharmacy, lost in WW2 and therefore rarely commented on at all, is analysed here from the contemporary perspective (for this work I used the re-make of Pharmacy by Bruce Checefsky from 2001), whereas Arabesque, regarded as touching upon sociological and psychological issues, is shown as responding to the contemporaneous scientific findings on the light-mater relationship and to Bergson’s idea of the universe as metacinema.