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Second Sun: Echoes of the Digital Dream
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- Author(s) / Creator(s)
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I'm about to sleep, my body feels heavy sinking into the bed, but my mind won’t shut down. A
swarm of thoughts floods my anxious mind: untenable commitments, fears of the future, shames
of the past, exquisite loneliness, and a deep, deep longing for home. My exhausted mind suggests
feverish connections and narratives, mixing up memories, movies, and sensations. I get caught in
unescapable loops between how I perceive the world and how I imagine the world perceives me.
I jump between my childhood dream of being by the sea and imagining a future home where one
day I might feel safe and secure. I switch between an idyllic landscape filled with windows that
sing with the wind and a void urban expanse of windows that open and close in response to my
voice which calls for other humans. I am in a field of sunflowers that constantly follow me as if I
were the sun. I sit before a plate of Brazilian guarana fruit, whose blinking eyes fix their
expectant yet lazy stare upon me.
In my waking hours, I delve into the ethereal essence of these dreams using virtual reality
technology powered by Unreal engine. This (more or less) open-access gaming platform enables
the creation of virtual landscapes where the rules of reality are fluid, mimicking the surreal
nature of dreams. Immersed in creating my virtual reality worlds, I feel the absence of physical
touch, a tangible sensation. I need some of this Unreal world to be real, tangible. So I tinker with
exporting some of the Unreal assets that populate my virtual dreams. I hold a 3D-printed shell
and house to my ear. I train a robotic sunflower and plate of guarana fruit to recognize my face
and follow me as I move around my studio.
In different cultures, dreams are seen as a very deep way to reach the human experience.
Amerindian cultures put a lot of emphasis on the fact that dreams are things collectively shared
and acted upon as a community's engagement with the wisdom of ancestors. They are used to
move through fears, challenges, and unknowns: in them, there is guidance without linearity,
which characterizes Western explanations. This circular and multilinear conception of dreams
belongs in a worldview in which the past, present, and future intermingle, and ancestors and
future generations coexist within a fluid temporal continuum.
My artwork draws from these varied perspectives, creating pieces that reflect the
multi-dimensional nature of dreams. By integrating ancestral knowledge with contemporary
digital experiences, my art seeks to engage with both timeless aspects of human existence and
current technological influences. This thesis explores how these interpretations of dreams inform
my creative process and how they are reflected in my artworks. -
- Date created
- 2024-09-01
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- Type of Item
- Research Material