The Dreammachine on display at Aiurart Gallery

Newsroom 09/07/2013 | 11:11

The first work of art to be seen with your eyes closed can be an alternative for these hot summer days, in “The Dreammachine” exhibition, which can be seen from July 10 until August 3, at Aiurart Contemporary Art Space. Oana Ionel, the artist, says that pulsating light stimulates the optical nerve and alters the brain’s electrical oscillations. Under the influence of William Grey Walter’s book, The Living Brain, along with Ian Somerville, Brion Gysin built The Dream Machine in 1961, a slotted cylindrical object whose rotational speed allows inside light to propagate with a constant frequency between 8 to 13 pulses per second. This frequency corresponds to alpha waves, electrical oscillations in the brain while relaxing.

The Dreammachine is an installation of light, sound and video in which the artist appropriates the experiment from 1960s to explore the psychological and theoretical dimensions of the gaze, from the image awareness regarded as aesthetic reality, to the internalization of the image as a pure sensitive element. Oana Ionel recreates a sensory trail complicating the gaze on the border of hypnotic relaxation and discomfort. The apparently scientific aspect of the story surrounding the machine goes down to a science fiction fixed on the immaterial, inner visual experience, a psychedelic lyrical technological experience specific to late avant-garde. Such a proposal in a contemporary world where addiction holds a different type of representation has the effect of a vintage object.

Opening: Wednesday, 10th of July, at 19.00, Aiurart Contemporary Art Space (Bucharest, Lirei 21).