9/9/2020
LAURIE FRICK PECHAKUCHA
This week I worked on my PechaKucha presentation, and in doing so I learned a lot more about the individuality of sleep.
Sleep is as personal as a fingerprint, according to data artist Laurie Frick. Frick believes that people have a strong and innate connection to our visualized data. As shown in the slide above, everybody has different minutiae in their sleep. They may wake up often, or have poor (light) sleep for lengthy amounts of time. When visualized, our sleep can tell a story at a glance. Frick takes this one step further and brings the visualized data into the tangible. The bumps on the walls at Frick’s exhibitions may seem abstract, but when understood in context, they tell a personal story. As Frick writes in her blog, “the physicality of data and hand-built patterns will let us read and understand what our bodies and behavior tell us. Numeric data are abstract concepts, as humans we simply can’t make sense of large numbers, but we do have an ability to understand pattern – especially colorful pattern intuitively.”
This piece by Frick, entitled Bumpyworld, represents neural paths of sleep patterns. This large scale representation of something so small such as neural pathways makes it easier to understand. When we can feel texture and see patterns, we can gain a greater understanding of complex concepts. Frick demystifies sleep through art, revealing it as something extremely individual and extremely important.
10/28/2020
This book speaks to the power of sleep and the unique ability of dreams to problem solve. Dreams “supplement and enrich what we’ve already done awake,” according to Dr. Barrett. Many cultures have looked towards dreams as inspiration for art; the Chippewa tribe used images from their dreams to “determine the patterns of their banners and beadwork.” The Saroa painted scenes from their dreams on their walls. Individuals such as William Blake were often inspired by dreams, as made apparent in works such as “Young Night’s Thoughts” (1818) or “Man who Instructed Blake in Painting in his Dreams” (1819).
Artists such as Dali and Birkhauser are some other examples of artists who depict dreamlike scenes in their art. Coleridge found inspiration for a poem in “an opium-induced sleep.” Dreams and sleep can enable the artist and present them with ideas and images that are much harder or impossible to come by when conscious. Dreams have a unique ability to present solutions to current problems while suggesting possibilities for the future.
Some works that I found that reference dreams are from contemporary musicians; I am looking to base my project on some of these songs.
“Shepherd’s Welcome” – Bill Callahan (Did you have that dream again? / The black dog on the beach)
“I Dream A Highway” – Gillian Welch (A silver vision, come and rest my soul / I dream a highway back to you)
“Leave It In My Dreams” – The Voidz (I will leave it, oh, in my dreams / I’ll never let it bother me)
“Dreaming” – Say Sue Me (I’d build a road in gold just to have some dreamin’ / Dreamin’ is free / Dreamin’, dreamin’ is free)
“Only In Dreams” – Weezer (Only in dreams / We see what it means)
“Rooftops” – The Bats (I can float over the rooftops / In my dreams that’s what I do )
“I’m Not Getting Excited” – The Beths (Violent dreams keep me awake / I wear the same face in the morning / A warning)
“Oxbow” – Waxahatchee (What dreams become concrete, they may feel trite)
I’ll continue to look for more songs that I listen to that reference dreaming (it’s quite hard to remember the ones that reference dreaming and don’t have the word “dream” in their name). These are some artists that I enjoy who reference dreaming and the unique power of dreams in their work.
12/13/20 – REFLECTIONS
Throughout the semester I learned a lot about the brain that I hadn’t known before and I explored mediums such as video for the first time. The variety in projects was really fun; I think the ultimate focus on color is a spot that I’m happy to creatively end the semester in. While I experimented with black & white film, ultimately playing with color is so enjoyable and the joy of color is irreplaceable. It was a very enjoyable semester and I managed to produce work that I could be proud of.