Turner Prize* - Summer of Dreams

Regular Programming Presentation No. 1

Turner Prize* (Jason Cawood, Blair Fornwald, John Hampton), Summer of Dreams, September 12-13, 2009.

Description: In an effort to have broader community engagement, Video Pool presented Turner Prize’s performative installation, Summer of Dreams. The artists built a geodesic dome in the public plaza at Portage and Main, where they invited the public to come in and share their past dreams.

The dome was equipped with a bed and pillows, providing a private, quiet, and intimate place for the sharing of dreams. The dome was decorated to evoke a quintessential seventies "make out" scenario (replete with vintage occasional lamps, incense burners, tasselled curtains, throw pillows, various psychadelia and kitsch objects), hearkening back to a time where dream analysis, pop psychology, stoner culture and new age self-exploration were part of the cultural zeitgeist.

An auditory visual stimulation device was used to assist participants in their dream recall. This machine used sound and light to alter brainwave frequencies, producing a dreamlike state. Two sets of attached headphones and goggles with LED lights allowed the participant and a member of the collective to "dream" simultaneously. While one member was empathy-dreaming with the participant, another recorded the dreamer's dialogue and took notes. These transcripts were used by the collective to re-stage dream images through restaged photography. Using found objects and handmade props, the artists created their own interpretations of these dream images. Turner Prize mailed back the photographs to the original participants. These images were also exhibited on Video Pool’s website.

The dream and dream analysis has been an unfashionable topic in the art world since the 1930s heyday of surrealism. Turner Prize* has chosen to reclaim this neglected subject matter for their art practice. Unlike the Surrealists, however, Turner Prize* recognizes the impossibility of representing objectively that which is wholly subjective. It is this disjuncture between the dream and the representation of the dream, or more generally, the disjuncture between experience and representation, that motivates Turner Prize*'s project.

The artists have been traveling to various locations, asking participants to recall a dream and share it with them. To assist participants in their dream recall, the collective uses an auditory visual stimulation device, a machine that uses sound and light to alter brainwave frequencies, producing a meditative or dreamlike state. This machine, The Mind's Eye Plus, allows a participant and a member of the collective to "dream" simultaneously – while one member empathy-dreams with the participant, another records the dreamer's dialogue and takes notes. These transcripts and notes are then used to conduct a subjective aesthetic analysis of each dream, whereby dream-images are reimagined by the collective. The results of this interpretative process will then be mailed back to the original participants.

Turner Prize* is a Regina-based art collective comprised of members Jason Cawood, Blair Fornwald, and John Hampton. Though they have been together since the beginning of 2008, they have already mounted an early works retrospective, entitled “Early Works”. Their medium of choice is performative photography; in their work they challenge the nature of documentation, representation, presence/absence, and the relationship between art and reality.

*Turner Prize is in no way affiliated with the actual Turner Prize.