DREAM OF PICTURES

27 July - 13 August 2011

Rachel Feery

Dream of Pictures inhabits alternative realms and out of body experiences. An audio visual work by Rachel Feery (with sound design from Ed Gould), Dream of Pictures investigates a space between waking and sleeping and between fantasy and reality. Evocations of utopian nature collide with blurred VHS nostalgia and knowing illusion; the viewer and the dreamer drift through varied scapes and sounds, everything is familiar, yet all is different.

Dream of Pictures is an audio visual video installation work that draws from pseudo-spiritual imagery associated with alternative realms and outer bodily experiences. Presented as a dual projection, the dreamer featured drifts between worlds. Imagery of sunsets, waterfalls, clouds and grandiose oceans provide rapturous imagery that the subject is lost in. An accompanying soundscape produced by Ed Gould samples a mix of a relaxation tapes and atmospheric loops heightening the luscious kitsch-ness of fantasy. Dream of Pictures captures rich and sensual emotion, through an overlay of sublime vistas that render the subject’s very own world. It is a contemplative work where the subject departs from actuality.

It is a sensual and meditative space but it is an Ed Wood (famed director of the 1959 cult-kitsch film Plan 9 from Outer Space) inspired meditation. Behind the façade all is illusion, created via filmic pans, overlays, soft focus and cross fades. Visual illusions and romantic effects become stand-ins for environment only seen in nature documentaries and in-flight tourism advertisements.

Both video projections feature a montage of ‘real’ found footage sampled from Reader’s Digest’s VHS soundtrack compilations; Nature’s Serenade and Nature’s Symphony melded with artistic renditions of idyllic landscape imagery.

The creases of a white silk sheet become ‘poetic’ when filmed under candlelight giving the illusion of snow topped mountainous peaks.
The folds in a blue iridescent fabric mimic a lapping ocean.
Mounds of corn flour topped with glitter and coloured sand form windswept dunes. Teardrop shaped beads blend into a rushing waterfall.

The central character is a goddess of her own dreams of pictures. She destroys and creates, finding her escape within intricate reconstruction of the cliché and the sublime.

- Rachel Feery, 2011.