Lucid Dream

Lucid Dream Final from evelyn on Vimeo.

Looking Through The Kaleidoscope Device

Drawings of the Site

 

Looking at the site through the lens of a dream, I see shapes, shadows, transparencies and shifting forms. If during a dream, the site changes, what are these changes? The main structure is the same and remains a constant, but the details are lost and the only thing you remember is the overall sense of a colour scheme, a significant colour that either dominates the composition or stands out more-here it is the vermilion red that pours out from the center. During the dream, the site shifts, the pouring of the sand takes its final form and becomes this red stream that cuts the composition in the middle. Often, when dreaming, the sequence is lost or forgotten, but one part of the dream remains engrained in the mind, here it is the way the site looks at the end, a general feel of the colours, forms and textures and a significant change in its main structure: the dominant red pile.

My dream of the site is that it melts away, it becomes distorted in the process of the dream state, it gradually changes. These changes are constant, but never return to its original state. The more I dream, the more the site changes, melting away gradually, changing colour, changing mood, forms shifting and moving slightly and finally dissolving into its more basic elements: colour hues and keeping only one part intact: the faraway windows on the building that can be viewed in the back.

Melting Of The Site - Experimentation

The overlapping of different parts of the site are an indication that I am dreaming. When in a state of dreaming, time stops or rather does not exist in the way we normally perceive it, sequences are lost or erratic, there is no clear beginning or end. So, the linear way in which we understand things no longer exists, but we view them in a different sequence or way. Perception becomes very subjective and images can often be confused or viewed as overlapping. So, here I am superimposing them, one by one, altering their transparencies and physical properties, blurring the edges and coming to the conclusion that depending on how strong an image is and how clear, so much closer it feels to reality. This jumbled up, opaque version of my site, belongs to a non-physical world.

Final Version

deconstruction of the site Final from evelyn on Vimeo.


Imagination is connected with the subconscious and the dream world. Looking at the dream sequences of Spellbound, thinking of ways of dissolving matter, breaking down the site visually and incorporating time as an abstract concept, I put everything together and followed two approaches: one involves the site being cut up and re-assembled in various forms that do not necessarily represent the way it looked originally. The second involves the site being overlaid with materials-each representing one of the four elements- and being depicted in limbo between a dream state (where time does not matter or even exist in a linear way) and a physical/impermanent stage.

Video experimentations

Video Experimentation from evelyn on Vimeo.


IMG 0035 from evelyn on Vimeo.


Experimentation from evelyn on Vimeo.

Alternative Ending to video

2nd Story Board

The ending I envisioned for the site was it being completely cut up and its pieces falling into an hourglass. The connection of the dream state and the de-struction of the site is integrally linked with time. The whole idea of the black holes and dreams is based on the notion that time does not exist in one way. Time is not a straight line, it is not read in a linear manner, it may not even exist in the way the Western world perceives it. The hourglass, symbolizes the constant change and shift from one state to the other, never ending and always contained in some form. The site may shift, become small parts, pieces that are re-assembled and cut up, but remain part of a larger whole, ready to be "put back in place". What that "place" will look like or belong to, does not matter, as long as there is some sort of "storage" for its individual parts. The idea here is that the site dissolves into particles/sand, the most intangible of visual forms-another idea is to have it dissolving into air- and is shifted through an hour-glass/black hole tunnel, so as to become a place in a different/parallel universe. Is it a dream or part of the astrological site that is called universe? The answer is as ambiguous as the dream itself is.

Re-Assembling Space

Collage stop motion 2 from evelyn on Vimeo.

This is the final attempt to re-structure the site to its formal elements and discover what makes it recognizable. The parts are re-asembled constantly, changing the viewpoints and the perspective, overlapping with one another, but remaining the fundamental elements of the site, even when they no longer resemble it. 

Anish Kapoor

The Dissolving Site

Story Board

Pictures From the Model-Process

Cutting up the site is one of the many ideas I had for the concept of dissolving and de-constructing it. When you destroy something or you de-construct it to its main elements, where do you start? From the materials that it is actually made of? Should I dissolve the stone and the mortar? From the formal elements? Should I deconstruct its perspective? Should I destroy the whole thing, adding elements and "vanishing" it? I wanted to do everything, but here, I made a model of the site and chose to represent its de-construction in a dream like way, choosing Hitchcock's stark representation of dreams, in Spellbound, selecting a realistic light source and adding elements that gradually "distort" the site and destroy it. Sand was used as a symbol of dust, which is what I want the site ultimately to become, dissolved into particles, the material it is actually made of. Sand falls on top of it, first colourless, then similar hues to the existing ones found on site, only bolder, enhancing its natural qualities and alluding to a dream taking place. The shapes and colours are influenced by Anish Kapoor's pigmented sculptures. Water falls, again transition sing from colourless fluid to blue, which relates to the concept of floods, a terrifying natural phenomenon that usually indicates turmoil and destruction. Change and movement are represented with the falling of the sand and water, which finally becomes static with the addition of wax. All four elements are represented: earth/water/wind and finally fire. Part of the site is burnt down, leaving almost immaterial ashes that are blown away. Part of it seizes to exist in its prior form and part of it remains buried under the weight of the additional materials. It is in limbo, between being sucked up in a  black hole and completely de-materialized and stuck in a dream sequence that alters its form in a nightmarish and semi-permanent way. The idea is to capture the dream=immaterial state with the destruction of the physical= real state.

Parallel Universes

Mind Map

"All the black holes found so far in our universe from the microscopic to the supermassive may be doorways into alternate realities.

According to a mind-bending new theory, a black hole is actually a tunnel between universes, a type of wormhole. The matter the black hole attracts doesn't collapse into a single point, as has been predicted, but rather gushes out a "white hole" at the other end of the black one, the theory goes.

According to the new equations, the matter black holes absorb and seemingly destroy is actually expelled and becomes the building blocks for galaxies, stars, and planets in another reality."

If, a black hole absorbs all the energy and matter there is around it and instead of destroying it completely, it transforms it in primal matter that forms a new space, a new universe, what happens to existing spaces if they go through a black hole? Do they loose all recognizable structure and forms, but retain their original context? Are they broken down into parts that become building blocks for a new space? What happens where no space or time exists? The scientific, philosophical and spatial aspect of this theory is mind-boggling and completely abstract, yet fascinating. I take the assumption that my site goes through a black hole and becomes destroyed, deconstructed but remains intact in some form. The principles of the site are not the recognizable space any more, it is not about the perspective of the street, the bricks or stones of the walls, but it is about the individual parts that can be cut up, re-assembled and re-structured, thus making a new space, a new site, based on the elements of the previous one. Even though the concept of absolute nothingness is intriguing and challenging spatially, I aim to de-construct my site as much as I can, without it losing all of its formal qualities. The process and "tunneling" between one reality to its hyper-reality status, will have to be a destructive one, a dream like process, which can be repeated endlessly and in numerous ways.