THIS LIKE A DREAM KEEPS OTHER TIME
This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time is an iterative project encompassing installation,video and performance. It is inspired by a dream I had in which I learned to sing for the first time from the gospel choir ladies in my late husband’s family church in Plainview, GA. It creates a dream landscape—a tangible space that mirrors the ephemeral part of the brain where complex emotions are born.
The project 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. Utilizing multiple ways of narrating and redreaming the dream, This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time reimagines my dream as a shared liminal experience with the audience, transforming loss into beauty through celebratory song, video, and drawing.
Created by Nene Humphrey
with
Simon Harding:Video,Set Design
Matana Roberts:Composer,Musician
Joseph LeDoux Lab,NYU: Neuroscience research
Anaïs Maviel Vocals
Clare Monfredo Cello
Ryan Gamblin Sound Design
Tom Sleigh poetry
Dream Score
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.
Searching
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.
Sing Back What Sung You In
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
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, INSTALLATION
Exhibition at Catskill Art Center, 2023
The installation This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time V1 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.
Workshop Performance
Theater Mitu, Artist-At-Home Grant, Sept. 30, 2023
An in-development workshop performance directed by Mallory Catlett
Created by Nene Humphrey, with Anaïs Maviel, Clare Monfredo, Simon Harding, Ryan Gamblin, Matana Roberts, Tom Sleigh
Full Performance here: https://vimeo.com/904485816
