The installation It’s All the Real World transformed my space at the Djerassi Artist Residency into an artwork about the circulation of ideas through collaborative creative process, as experienced in the Dream Vortex. The title asserts the continuity between the physical and virtual worlds. Circling the room were objects and drawings following the transmigration of psychological impulses through images and texts: from the dream image in the dreamer’s mind, to the dream story as told to me, to my drawing, to text code, to the visual image of the dream vortex. The installation tracks the presence of the impulses traveling through the creative process, with artifacts such as notes between collaborators referring to the process by which they become visible.
About It’s All The Real World
At the center of It’s All the Real World was an easel with dream sketches, next to a small table holding drawing materials and a hand-edited draft of scientific paper about probable states of matter. The easel and table rest on unfurling scroll of paper, with a diagram from the scientific paper reproduced in charcoal, glass and measuring tape. Physically, these objects were placed where one could look all around the room to follow the changing forms of the dream stories as they moved from image to text and back again; conceptually they referred to the work’s exchange between art and research.
Exhibition
This site-specific installation was opened to the public July 27, 2014 at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program in Woodside, California.
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