THIS LIKE A DREAM KEEPS OTHER TIME
This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time is a series of works creating a tangible space that mirrors the ephemeral part of the brain where complex emotions are born. A dream I had inspired the project: I was learning to sing from the choir ladies at Plainview Baptist, my late husband’s family church in rural Georgia. The work investigates both the overlooked importance of dreaming to our psychological health and scientific research demonstrating that feelings of well-being and mood elevation are biologically programmed to surface with communal singing. The multidisciplinary project features live and recorded music, video and drawing. Utilizing multiple ways of narrating and redreaming the dream, This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time creates a shared liminal experience with the audience.
Created by Nene Humphrey
with Simon Harding:Video,Sound Design
Matana Roberts:Composer,Musician
Joseph LeDoux Lab,NYU: Neuroscience research
Anaïs Maviel Vocals
Clare Monfredo Cello
Ryan Gamblin Sound
Tom Sleigh poetry
To Describe a Dream
8 1/2” x 11” transparencies of neural patterns on lightbox
11” x 18”
Video of Matana Roberts’ sax improvisation with transparencies layering on lightbox as she plays.
Dream Score
8” x 20’ Paper scroll in box on steel table, graphite, gouache, charcoal, wood, cardboard, steel
42” H x 19”W x 69”L overall.
Detail: Dream Score
8” x 20’ Paper scroll in box on steel table, graphite, gouache, charcoal, wood, cardboard, steel
42” H x 19”W x 69”L overall.
Starr Busby creates vocal improvisations as she watches the Dream Scroll unrolling, folding and layering.
Part of my residency at Watermill Arts Center with video collaborator Simon Harding Nov.2021.
Detail: Searching, 2022, Group of 5 videos with magnifying lenses on wood table.
Glass magnifying lenses, 5” x 5” Hyperpixel video display in 3-printed boxes, metal stands,brass screws.
Looking through a mounted magnifying glass at a video of the amygdala filmed through a high-powered microscope. The video reflects the camera’s search for amygdala neurons through the multiple lenses of the microscope.
See Searching video here
Sing Back What Sung You In
Felt, raw wool.
64”H x 72” W.
Needlefelted wave form of “Sing back what sung you in” composition by Matana Roberts.
Detail of Sing Back What Sung You In
Felt, raw wool.
64”H x 72” W.
Needlefelted wave form of “Sing back what sung you in” composition by Matana Roberts.
Projection of Watermill grasses on needlefelted waveform. Part of my residency at Watermill Arts Center with video collaborator Simon Harding Nov.2021.
Soundings
Paper, graphite, gouache, collage
71” H. x 8L. x 3” D. overall
Detail: Soundings
Paper, graphite, gouache, collage
71” H. x 8L. x 3” D. overall
This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time, version #1., 2023
The installation This Like a Dream Keeps Other TimeV1 in the CAS Ramp gallery creates a dream landscape encouraging reverie, contemplative looking and listening. Active investigative areas with laboratory-style tables motivate viewers to discover their own connections to the brain and their dreams by engaging with visual and sonic materials intentionally selected to evoke subconscious and emotional responses.
Read the cataolgue essay “Touching Rythms” by Cristina Albu here.
Workshop Performance, Theater Mitu, Artist-At-Home Grant
Sept. 30, 2023
An in-development workshop performance directed by Mallory Catlett
With Nene Humphrey, Anaïs Maviel, Clare Monfredo, Simon Harding, Ryan Gamblin, Matana Roberts, Tom Sleigh
Full Performance here: https://vimeo.com/904485816
