Dream-states as Real-states

James Clar works with light. We can say he comes from Dan Flavin or Olafur Eliasson, but that is beside the point. Today, it is all about what we see when there is no light... at night (or day, if you prefer) when we dream. 

James Clar One Minute Dreamstate (1.40am) 2012

This particular work involved a brainwave sensor which recorded Clar's brain activity while asleep. At 1.40am, REM occurred and he entered a dreamstate. One minute of this recording was then mapped out and translated into light filters, arranged in a circle to emulate the face of a clock (or an iris?). Merging technology, science, art, and mundanity (fluorescent lights)... Clar made his dreams literally real and happening in front of him once he was awake.  

This is not a new concept though. In the last couple years scientists (in Japan and the US) have been making major strides in doing exactly what James was doing, but taking it a step further. Not only are they taking our dreams and making them physical, they are replaying them for us. 




Above is a video of the visual reconstruction of activity in the human brain. It is blurry, a little fragmented, but definitely recognizable. This is an art post after-all, think of the pixels as a colour palette. Or Pointillism. 

They did this by showing test subjects a series of movie trailers while an fMRI system (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging System) recorded the blood flow in the brain to the visual cortex. The readings were fed into a computer, divided into pixel units (voxels) and put back together to make images that are pretty uncanny. As the experiments continued, the technology utilized was able to better  read, and thus connect, specific brain information to their corresponding motions/colours/etc. 

That is all very technical though, thank god for Google; still beside the point though.

So! A chance to rewatch/relive what the deepest-nether-regions of our brains come up with when we aren't paying attention!? Who's in?



One Minute Dreamstate (1.40) was exhibited at Carbon 12 in 2012 as part of James Clar's solo exhibition Iris was a Pupil.