“The Love of a Shade and the Jealousy of an Aura” 2020 This piece was produced during the lockdown, when most of the contact I had with people was through social media or Zoom meetings. As our social sphere gradually moved to an experience almost entirely through screens we started to spend more time curating what could be seen on the frame with us. Backgrounds, filters, make-up, and better lighting started to become prominent in these virtual gatherings. We became digital versions of ourselves. A great part of our lives happens online, in an accelerated reality. This has developed in us a pathological impatience that leads us to fast-forward living even offscreen. As technology evolves, we continue to find new ways to interact. In the process of adapting our lives with a broader spectrum of digital communication tools we tend to move towards less disruptive ways to converse. Although practical, when texting or posting becomes our primary way of interacting, we miss out in developing meaningful relations. We are communicating in homeopathic doses, through small bits of information delivered over time, that together amount to very little. We fail to engage in thoughtful conversation because we are not present even when physically there. The ways we relate to technology are stopping us from learning how to develop the mechanisms we need to truly relate to one another. There is so much that we can understand with body language alone, that even if we do not comprehend exactly what each mannerism signifies, when added to context and language, these fragments of information can be vital for good communication to take place. We cannot have a considerate exchange solemnly through screens. Face-to-face dialog is fundamental for developing intimacy. The title was borrowed from the first operatic adaptation of the myth of Echo and Narcissus: Amor d’un’Ombra e Gelosia d’un’Aura.