Outline – Exploring nocturnal narratives through digital arts workshops in St. Helens Central Library, 2011 / 2012
Partners – St Helens Arts Service, St Helens Central Library
Synopsis – Over 6 months, Re-Dock worked with the library-going public in St Helens to collect and creatively represent their dreams through a series of workshops in the Central Librarry’s iHub mac suite. Sessions were designed to give people an introduction to facilities available in the iHub, whilst using the theme of dreams as a creative stimulus for discussion and expression. Participants on the project were asked to contribute a dream they had, writing or illustrating it in the Dream Record Book, before working with the artists the further interpret and represent that dream using a series of digital tools. Workshops included stop-motion animation, soundscape composition and podcasting in Garageband, creating an collaborative eBook using Booktype, digital photo collage, 3D modelling in Blender, poetry and cut up composition.
The original dream records and the creative responses were shared across two events during the project.
Firstly, an immersive audio-visual event entitled ‘MUSIC FOR SLEEPING’, in which the sounds and animations created in the workshops were performed in surround sound and vision to an audience (nearly) asleep on the library floor.
The final sharing of the project – the EXHIBITION OF DREAMS – was an installation at The World of Glass, sharing the collated dream records and creative interpretations across a variety of archival media including microfiche, audio cassette and 35mm slides. A second space – the dreamers bedroom – allowed people to experience the Music For Sleeping soundscape in the recommended horizontal position.
Lead Artists – Sam Meech, Chris Rodenhurst, Tom Smith
Associate Artists – Neil Winterburn, Nathan Jones, John O’Shea, Tim Brunsden
Links
project blog – www.libraryofdreams.org.uk
MUSIC FOR SLEEPING
EXHIBITION OF DREAMS installation at St Helens world of Glass
