User:Mirjam Dissel/proposal draft

General Intro

BITESIZE CHUNKS

I want to work with my dreams,
BUT
not necessarily about the content of these dreams.

I'm trying to discover a pattern between these dreams.
BECAUSE
The subject fascinates me: the information about the past dreams is available to me only while I'm dreaming - not when I'm awake.

NEVERTHELESS,
the dreams are only to be seen as the material I want to work with now. I want to produce a series of works, that I'm going to analyze afterwards and discover what's the underlying pattern of my fascination.

I would like to develop small projects in order to find out for myself what the underlying themes are. I know what I am fascinated with, in order to find a concept for the graduation project, I'd like to trace connections between these different fascinations and reach the core of the matter and come up with a solid proposal, consistent with my methodology.

FOR EXAMPLE:
Memory, remembering, iteration of memory (previous project, 'Man on a Beach, Posing')
Machines that work in a similar way to the process of my dreams (connections, translations).

Previous Practice

Descriptions previous projects what why how

METHODOLOLOLOLOGY
My projects revolve around collectivity. I like to work with a collection, whether already present or made on the spot by participants. Next to collectivity, I like to work with individual fantasy and imagination next to a collaborative and collective memory. A key aspect in the projects is the role of choice. How do we choose? The manual labour that is involved in adding to, arranging or augmenting the collection in ways that are instinctual but mostly come from tradition and semiotics are a thing for me to play with and investigate. The personal perspective from this manual labour, sometimes craftsmanship, gives it value and uniqueness. I then deconstruct and rearrange the collection myself. The different ways of organizing this data become the final product. Or, the work consists of the (re)arrangements of others, as an interactive platform to continue from.

Usually, my work is a result of a broad and long research. I need dialogue with teachers and fellow students to get stimulation. At the same time I like to distance myself from the project to let things bed down and get a broader perspective. I do this by looking at other people's work, at what's already out there, so I can take different opinions into consideration. Next to that, I make small prototypes, from there it naturally evolves into a conceptually solid project.

More on graduation project

What have I been doing so far?

I have been experimenting with writing down my dreams: voice recording, writing down these dreams immediately after waking up, writing down notes after waking up and making a story out of it later. I've notices very different experiences between these methods: when listening to the voice recording again it's almost as if I've never heard of this story before, because when recording I was free to speak, I wasn't 'obstructed' by creating grammatically correct sentences or the plot. When I write down the dreams much later I still remember the dream, but I forget if and which previous dream popped up in my head while dreaming, but I can sometimes remember other dreams afterwards, when they have something to do with the scene I was actually dreaming about that night.

I have started to make a map out of these dreams. The places I to dream about all seem to be based on the places I know from childhood. The most occurring places are: my parents' backyard and my grandma's living room and (back)yard, both situated in my hometown, Dalfsen. When drawing the map I noticed that I always dream that the north and south are the other way around.

A lot of times it happened that I dream of brilliant designs or ideas in my dreams, that are the basis of future projects. I'm starting to draw everything I think is interesting. It's proven to be very difficult to draw something that in a dream can make perfect sense, but in the physical world cannot exist (think M.C. Escher).

Next to this I have also started a collection of inspiration. Pictures of projects that I think are interesting and relate to this project in one way or another.

What am I reading? Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams Sadie Plant - The Future Looms