You Were In My Dream is an interactive installation created by Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine. It premiered at Experimenta Utopia Now, February 2010 in Melbourne, Australia.
The work takes a live video feed of your face and combines it into a beautiful stop motion dream world. You enter into a utopian geography and navigate a path through a jungle of forest animals where survival of the fittest reigns supreme.
The work toured Australia through 2010/11 and through Asia in 2011/12 and recently showed at Cinekid, in the Netherlands. It won the 2010 Premier of Queensland's National New Media Art Award, Australia's most significant prize for new media art.
You Were In My Dream, Blackbox, 2010.
You Were In My Dream, Cinekid Medialab, 2012.
Artists' Statement
The germ of the idea for You Were In My Dream began with the idea of putting a viewer's head onto an animated character via a live video feed. We were struck by the strange feeling you get from watching your disembodied head running around on a different body.
The work was commissioned by Experimenta as part of their 2010 Biennial with the theme of 'Utopia'. We developed the work very much with the theme in mind.
We thought about evolution and transformation and how wonderful it is that over time species adapt to their environments, developing different attributes and characteristics, streamlining their bodies to perform their ecological function.
We came up with a character whose body and nature transforms to fulfil the requirements of the forest. Instead of trying to bend the forest to your will, you change to suit the forest.
We wanted to use utopic imagery, and paradise is often portrayed as beautiful untouched nature where the balance of life is in harmony.
The characters and sets are designed to echo children’s picture books, helping you to feel a sense of security in the familiar which counteracts the strange sensation of seeing your face on the body of the character.
Through the technology we have created a new kind of narrative experience. One that, instead of asking you to identify with the main character, turns you INTO the main character!
