artists in residence
The Sociability of Sleep residency continues and builds on work I made during a digital artist residency at the PHI Centre at the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020 in which I filmed my girlfriend and I sleeping for 60 nights.
I was surprised at how many times per night (3-7) I had sleep disturbances where I gasped, yelled, talked, screamed, did elaborate arm choreography, and got up to check under the bed while asleep. At the start of this project I was interested in using surveillance technologies like a consumer grade so-called ‘spy’ camera as a means to look at and explore intimacy, vulnerability, and non-sexualized representations of queer coupling. What I didn’t realize was just how much I didn’t know my unconscious self and how many times she acted out when I was sleeping.
In the Sociability of Sleep residency, I am expanding this work of accumulated sleep disturbances and unfamiliarity with my sleeping self and mixing this with representations of dreams made in digital collage. I am also recounting my dreams for the camera and playing with various computer-generated avatars to experiment with storytelling. I want to fix my dreams to reality by taking them out of the realm of the abstract and unconscious and giving them shape and form to be seen by others.
How will these different forms talk to each other and what will this conversation do for the viewer who is literally placed in the middle of this work in a video installation? How can the recounting and representation of (my) dreams and sleep be interesting or compelling for someone else?
So far as part of this residency, I’ve made one video that accounts for dreams I’ve had while filtered as a D*sney cartoon.
I was surprised at how many times per night (3-7) I had sleep disturbances where I gasped, yelled, talked, screamed, did elaborate arm choreography, and got up to check under the bed while asleep. At the start of this project I was interested in using surveillance technologies like a consumer grade so-called ‘spy’ camera as a means to look at and explore intimacy, vulnerability, and non-sexualized representations of queer coupling. What I didn’t realize was just how much I didn’t know my unconscious self and how many times she acted out when I was sleeping.
In the Sociability of Sleep residency, I am expanding this work of accumulated sleep disturbances and unfamiliarity with my sleeping self and mixing this with representations of dreams made in digital collage. I am also recounting my dreams for the camera and playing with various computer-generated avatars to experiment with storytelling. I want to fix my dreams to reality by taking them out of the realm of the abstract and unconscious and giving them shape and form to be seen by others.
How will these different forms talk to each other and what will this conversation do for the viewer who is literally placed in the middle of this work in a video installation? How can the recounting and representation of (my) dreams and sleep be interesting or compelling for someone else?
So far as part of this residency, I’ve made one video that accounts for dreams I’ve had while filtered as a D*sney cartoon.
— Dayna McLeod