HELEN CHANG

During the quarantine period, the world seems extra surreal. The outside is unsafe, close contact with other human beings are discouraged and the digital world is taking over our lives more distinctly than ever. All of these resulted in forming hyper realistic but highly stressful and disruptive dreams. They leaked into my reality when I almost could not differentiate dreams from my actual memories. All of which I found highly intriguing, and hence I recorded all the dreams I can remember into a dream log. This video is a translation of this dream log. 

 

The contents of dreams can be lost from memory as quickly as opening one’s eyes, making dreams vague and unapproachable. However, the residual sensation perseveres into moments after I awake, including anxiety, confusion and sense of absence. To incorporate these sensations I experienced in and of my dreams, this work presents an abstract concept through a conglomeration of everyday-life activities. Moreover, dreams are an artificial space that defy the laws of physics. This inspired the digital manipulation of the footage to form an other-worldly atmosphere on top of the seemingly normal events. Included is the heavy manipulation of the audio, which is recordings of the words and phrases directly lifted from my dream log. Dreams are soundless, yet we know precisely what is happening. The audio in this video translates these soundless thoughts in the dream world into audible voices. 

 

Emotions and mental health can be unstable during times like this. Through art, we can only begin to uncover the loose interrelations between collective trauma and dreams, and the vast depth of the human psyche.