REM-Fit Projects Presents - d.REM, a curatorial project conceived by Allegra Shorto to explore and expand the relationship between art and dream. It unites thinkers from the fields of art, music and science to trace the blurred boundary between sleep and wakefulness. Through a series of dream interventions, artists attempt to penetrate the dream state by curating sleeping environments. They create sensory installations that probe sleepers with feelings, sounds and smells that may be incorporated into the narrative of dreams; alter their content or partially wake participants, making them aware that they are dreaming.
The first d.REM intervention takes place on May 25 at the Freud Museum. A selection of artists are invited to sculpt a sensory landscape in Sigmund Freud’s house for a group of sleepers, who will spend the night in the museum. Extending the work of 19th century dream doctor Alfred Maury, these artists attempt to creatively shape dreams.
The experiment is informed by new and original research conducted by lucid dream expert Dr. Keith Hearne proving that sensory information arouses dreams and can trigger lucidity. In this new era of expanded understanding of the dream dimension, we are awakened to the possibility of curating the caverns of conscious, sleeping minds.
All-night sound performances by Lee Berwick, Camilla Emson and IONE diffuse through the rooms of the museum. Berwick’s soundscape is rooted in frequencies tuned to the earth’s rotation relative to the sun and star field. The installation explores the harmonising effect these vibrations can have, as the sleeping body entrains to the intense, focused movement of the air in the surrounding environment. Over the nine-hour sleep period, the artist introduces elemental sounds over the earth tones in ninety minute cycles, which correspond to the duration of REM sleep phases. The five elemental sound compositions, developed for their healing potential, are ordered in the production cycle that according to Chinese philosophy flows from Earth to Metal to Water to Wood to Fire and on back to Earth. Additional sounds will be used periodically to remind those half-awake that their body falls asleep and the mind wakes up on the astral.
Initiating Berwick's soundscape is a collaborative performance between the artist and Mikael Öberg. In The Divine Dreamer, the performance storyteller uses spoken word to spin dreamlike imagery of an irrational adventure set between the dissolution and re-creation of the universe.
In addition to the sleep event, a radio program made up of episodes lasting the duration of an REM cycle, roughly 90 minutes, to be played through sleep such that the sounds might affect the dream content. These episodes will air weekly during the summer 2018 - more information to follow soon....
As an ongoing initiative and research into dreams, REM-Fit & d.REM will be organising future sleep events. If you would like further information on these events and would like to participate, please contact sales@rem-fit.co.uk or call 0800 014 9366.
