Dream
Every day I wake up with the burning question: am I living in two different worlds? Is there any transition between them? Can I pass through and enter my dreams? Or is it a dream, that I perceive as a reality?
“The ultimate dreamer of the vast life-dream is finally … but one … and … the multiplicity of appearances follows from the conditioning effects of time and space. It is the one great dream dreamed by a single Being, but in such a way that all the dream characters dream too.” 1
Dreaming is a subjective experience and at the same time an integral, important, and personal expression of the individual unconscious. It is as “real” as any other phenomenon attached to an individual. Communications of the unconscious are of the highest importance to the dreamer and frequently offer him advice or guidance that could be obtained from no other source. The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that reestablishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium.2
Jung discussed the interesting contrast between the "controlled" thoughts we have in waking life and the wealth of imagery produced in dreams. In our civilized life, we have stripped so many ideas of their emotional energy, we do not really respond to them anymore. We use such ideas in our speech, and we show a conventional reaction when others use them, but they do not make a very deep impression on us. Something more is needed to bring certain things home to us effectively enough to make us change our attitude and our behavior. That is what "dream language" does - its symbolism has so much psychic energy that we are forced to pay attention to it.3
The Possibility of the Impossible
Every dream is a prophecy: every jest is an earnest in the womb of time.4
Badiou conceives of human existence as consisting of two (at times overlapping) realms. The first is the ordinary, everyday domain of (seemingly) coherent identities. This domain (or “situation”) is organized around the pursuit of personal interests, such as wealth, success, acclaim, happiness, or rewarding relationships, and it is held together by a pool of taken-for-granted knowledge about the state of the world and the meaning of human life. The second is the exceptional domain of truth-events-moments when the subject is seized by an epiphanic vision so powerful that it is momentarily dislodged from its ordinary life. During such sudden surges of insight, the subject is able to view the world from an angle that is foreclosed by its customary mode of being. In the same way that the Lacanian real explodes the coordinates of the symbolic, the truth-event pierces the membrane of the subject’s interest-driven preoccupations. 5 Even though the real as such remains impossible, it can nevertheless bring something unprecedented into existence; it can, precisely, produce the possibility for new possibilities. Or, in a somewhat different vein, the encounter with the real is the impossible event that nonetheless takes place.
Real happens to us (we encounter it) as impossible, as the ‘impossible thing’ that turns our symbolic universe upside down and leads to the reconfiguration of this universe. This is why “the impossibility of the Real does not prevent it from having effects in the realm of the possible.” 6 This is one way to understand why the encounter with the real has the power to transform not only our self-perception, but also the structure of the world. Likewise, Badiou’s truth-event represent a break in routine that manages to provoke something utterly surprising or unforeseeable1. 7
The Video portrays a dreamer on a mission to restore and collect her fragmented dreams. It takes us on a journey throug different countries and features eight performances.
As the story unfolds, the protagonist finds herself trapped in a labyrinth of dream realities where the boundaries between them are constantly shifting and repeating themselves.
Access to dream spaces is an ongoing project born in 2017 as my Masters in Performing Public Space at Fontys. It delves into both subjects: dream and public space, exploring their connections in order to reflect on my study and practice. Drawing inspiration from psychology, philosophy and the works of other artists, my aim was to create my individuality and experience freedom in public space, raising awareness, celebrating contradictions, and leaving an impression on both the environment and the people present.
Public space “can bring together disparate activities, occupiers and characters in a manner that creates valuable exchanges and connections.” 8 Arendt associates the process of self-disclosure with the highest of human activities: speech and action in the public realm. It is through our words and deeds in the company of others, she argues, that “like a second birth” we disclose who we are and “insert ourselves into the human world”. Speech and action in a shared public space, in short, are the activities through which we become most fully human. 9
Reflecting on my practice, I employed a cross-disciplinary approach and aimed to create traditional (Sama), anti-representational and simultaneously transcultural performances, that could break the norm to enhance the viewer's perceived sense of immediacy. To be embedded in public implied a kind of empathic operation, in which, to be present means to “observe sympathetically, to suspend judgement, to pay attention to the processes, whereby one's participation might activate a unitary process that binds observation of place with a contribution to its transformation.” 12
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a contemporary Iranian scholar in comparative theology, believes that in traditional art it appears that the audiences can mediate and go beyond their intuitive recognition. And this is above all the study and research or ascetic discipline. He emphasises that the traditional art is not only an inner expression or thoughts, but also it is based on cosmological science and can make a bridge between human domain and spiritualism with expressing the faces which transformed to non-faces. 13
The reflection of being un-representational brought me to this idea of not making huge changes in the space, instead I observed the space, created simple movements and improvised with unexpectated moments and the presence and reflections of the audience.
The term transcultural was inevitable, as I was locating my work within the midst of different societies 14 referring to the dimensions of place. Participating and developing as subjects took center stage, I began questioning my art production and reflecting to the audience a self-image as the definer rather than the defined.
Public space
Just as we enter our dreams every night, so too do we pass through public spaces on a daily basis. My main goal with this project was to let the intimacy of dream moments become exposed in public space, questioning: how can I dream where I never expect to?
Space as place is the possibility of two or more things occupying the same location. Place is a static order and constituted by a system of signs. Space is a dynamic network of pathways composed of intersections of mobile elements" and "actuated by the ensemble of movements deployed within it. 10
Heterotopia (other space) is the term Foucault proposes for that “disturbing” space of otherness where mismatched objects appear together. It is a kind of in-between of contradiction, of contestation, which mimics or simulates lived spaces, and in so doing, brings spaces we live in into question. In his opinion, heterotopia is mainly the relationship between spaces established in his act of reading which, given his occidental frame of reference, incites the confrontation, first registered in laughter, between the two spatial orders to which he alludes. Hetherington follows Foucault in regarding heterotopia as a relationship between spaces, as in effect a middle region or “space-between” where processes of ordering reveal themselves as such by juxtaposing different spatial orders. In this respect, no space is inherently Other, but rather Other always in relation to the spaces it opposes. It is possible, of course, for something to be characterized as different without that recognition throwing everything into question.
The new public domain does not only appear at the usual places in the city, but often develops in and around the in-between spaces. These places often have the character of ‘liminal spaces’: “they are border crossings, places where the different worlds of the inhabitants of the urban field touch each other”. 11
Thanks for your time and attention. If you are interested in seeing more of my artworks, feel free to contact me or browse my portfolio: www.1011o.com
Access to dream spaces was in fact as possible as it was impossible. The questions have grown within me as we have been experiencing the Corona pandemic and the resultant surge in digitalization of human experiences. I continue to develop concepts, create and discover possibilities in public space and absorb its unknown and paradoxical aspects. The challenge is greater now since the human presence, particularly in public spaces, is more damaged and continuously under attack.