CAROLINE'S NIGHTMARE PROJECT
PROJECT PLAN
There has been a nightmare that has been plaguing me because it was so visually stimulating that I felt this urge to depict it. I could not give the vision justice in a painting so I pretty much gave up. The nightmare goes as follows: I was falling for a massive chunk of the dream; falling in between a system of pipes, but the pipes had spikes as well as other individuals who had managed to clutch for their lives and were thusly ferociously grasping at me for aid as I fell. Finally, I splashed into a body of water with relief. Then assessing the situation I realized that the water was not only grotesque but also filled with dead bodies. I looked to the distance for an escape and woke with the realization that all I could see through the eerie fog was an infinite grid of these pipes and speckles of corpses.
My goal for this project is 1.) to attempt to accurately share the emotion felt during this dream and 2.) to discombobulate the viewers perceptions (this is a general goal I am currently struggling to achieve with all of my art). However, all I may be able to do is allow people to feel a nightmare.
My idea is to set up my old bed for the viewer/participant to lie down in. However, when a head touched the pillow it will activate sensors that will control spooky effects. I am thinking about sounds from under the bed, and isolated/dark lighting. I was also contemplating adding a stuffed animal that one could squeeze to get it all to stop.
If I were to depict this nightmare, I would need to somehow simulate falling with noise, moving lights, or something of that sort. I could set the actions in a time line, lights go off with a solitary eerie light, falling, a splash, possibly a stink, and dying groans/screams of people near and far, and then maybe (if I want to be more complicated) either activate cardboard pipes to lower or shine lights on previously hidden piping. I could make the whole set up more intense with dry ice and probably numerous other cheesy and over complicated special effects. My hope is to figure out an accurate way to represent the fear and dismay invoked in the nightmare in as few sensory displays as possible.
I am currently working on a painting of this nightmare, attempting to depict the horror in a serene and beautiful composition. (Not to boost, but I think I may have succeeded). I am trying to decide if it is necessary to follow through with my original idea of having the viewer interpret the painting one way and then having their perceptions unsettled by other sensory clues. I could hang the painting and somehow inform the viewer to get comfortable in the bed in order to interpret the artwork.
That was a long explanation of where I am.
In my project, I would like to examine our process of touch as it relates to the computer mouse; I can imagine this in a couple different forms. At first, I imagined using the underside of the mouse (where the laser beam or other sensor device is housed) to sense movement. By lining up a sequence of mouses suspended from the ceiling, I could form or infer a sort of runway for the audience to engage with. As people walk down the runway, the reprogrammed sensors in the mouse would communicate with a screen at the end of the runway to create a drawing or other visual response to the movement. By removing any physical connection to the mouse, our normal understanding of this device and how it produces intangible forms is inverted, returning the power to less tangible senses and form (i.e., movement, light, etc).
While reading Lupton's article (Skin: New Design Organics), I formed a new idea based on the quote from Mark C. Taylor's book, Hiding: "At the point where I make contact with the world, I am always already dead." For me, this spoke critically about the creative process; in a sense, once an object has been created or an idea actualized, the concept itself is dead. Shortly following, Lupton refers to the skin as "a screen on which we can watch the body's amazing ability to heal itself while also witnessing its inevitable collapse (31)" which draws another similarity of the fuzzy realm between concept and prototype -- the death of one form and the life of another. After mentally processing these ideas, I envisioned a different setup for my project. This time the audience would be invited to interact and engage with just one mouse, perhaps in a normal computer setting (i.e. monitor, keyboard, mouse). At any point while one's hand is hovering above the mouse, an unexpected, conceptual result would be relayed on the screen. However, once the hand makes contact with the mouse, the ideas are gone, or lines are straightened, etc. Perhaps this more drastically takes the power away from the mouse, enforcing that the most energy is inherent in the creator and that that is where the best ideas are formed. 
