Institute of Contemporary Arts

Dream Director

Luke Jerram has built on research carried out with sleep psychologist Chris Alford at The University of West of England to create a new immersive installation that merges art, science and digital media. The Dream Director invites members of the public to sleep overnight in a gallery, in a specially designed pod, wearing an eye-mask that detects rapid eye movement. This automatically triggers sounds which are played into small speakers mounted into the pod, affecting the nature and content of dreaming.

The Dream Director explores the boundaries of participants' conscious and subconscious minds, prompting questions about the ethics of and possibilities for creating art in dream space. It is also a new tool for sleep science and has clinical applications which raise questions about the rules of interaction and boundaries of science and art.

Following initial testing on an invited audience of peers at At-Bristol science centre and on the wider public at Arnolfini in 2007, the project is about to embark on a national tour to ICA, FACT and De La Warr Pavilion with the support from the Arts Council England, where a wider audience will be able to participate in further sleepovers.

Commissioned by Watershed Media Arts Centre in Bristol, funded by JA Clark Charitable Trust, Arts Council England & Watershed

www.lukejerram.com
www.dreamdirector.net

This event has now finished