A Dream Made Real

Dream Machine // BANG network for Nuit Blanche from the Bang Network

Does a place dream? If it does, what is Brighton dreaming? And how do these dreams find their way to transform the city?

The Dream Machine project explored the interesting leaky boundary between inner worlds and outer worlds. We seeded a story in Brighton through the month of October in two comics newspapers (printed by Newspaper Club) that told an alternative history of Marlborough House. Animation projections brought this dream to life in a late night projection performance on the Nuit Blanche of the 30th October.

The projection performance wove together dreams and visions of local artists and animators connected to the BANG network. The dreams of the sleepers inside the building bled out onto the streets, seeped through the windows, and danced on the facade: octopus tentacles, ancient histories and futuristic visions, alien visitations, nightmares and fantasies, animals and connection. The animation played on a rolling programme from 7pm to 3am and was seen by a few thousand people.

Between runs, Seb Lee Delisle crafted an interactive projection which took the dreams of the festival goers – texted and tweeted to us on the night – and inscribed them onto the mansion itself. Seb has blogged about his use of Processing to create the set up.

Dream Machine is a collective collaboration across people connected through the Brighton Animators’ Network. It took a huge amount of sweat and good will from some really gifted people to bring this one in. The Dream Machine website holds a full list of credits and a link to an online version of the comics newspapers.

Special thanks to animator Alison Garnham for filming the live performance and permission to share the footage above. Alison created the UFO animation: I particularly loved the way this section created a rich, expansive, cosmic pause in the programme. Thanks also to the artist and graphic novelist Aneurin Wright for documenting the Comics Newspapers so beautifully on his website welsheldorado.com. Nye created the brilliant final pages of the comics narrative, working with Andy Pearson's (Batch 25 comics) character designs to stage the second Newspaper's cliffhanger: the Doctor on Brighton beach confronted by his Leviathan-like Octopus dream creation. Nye's designs made it into the animation too: transformed by animator David Packer (Sheep Films) who worked with the group to create the vital storytelling animation scenes at the top and tail of the programme. Dave worked to carefully model and respond to the architecture: the opening scene played with different light sources, throwing dynamic shadows across the building in a way that gave me chills every time. Gratitude to Anna Bertmark for the masterful sound mix, weaving many disparate elements into harmony, and to The Monroe Transfer, whose music echoes in my mind, even now.

Thanks to so many people. I could not say this in person, as I spent much of the night in the van triggering the animations one by one... Something to automate next time ha ha ha. But, no regrets. It was a fantastic evening, and special to see a member of Pink Floyd in the crowd too.

There are more photos of the event on the Flickr Group.

Let's get together for Christmas drinks to celebrate this one.

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Dream Machine

Created by Brighton, through the artists and animators of the BANG network

Directors: Abbie Stanton // Kate Genevieve // Sarah Bird

Technical director: Seb Lee-Delisle

A/V equipment and technical consultancy: Brightonart

Comics team: Kate Genevieve // Andy Pearson // Abbie Stanton // Francesca Popow

Sound Direction: Anna Bertmark

Music: The Monroe Transfer

Radio pieces: Donald Newholm & Michael O’Kelley

Live Performance Director: Eva Daurios

Live Performance Coordinator: Jeremy Radvan

Press: Maria Parra

Web: Luke Hay

Workshops: Kit Hown Man

Dream Machine @ Reasons To

It was an honour to present the Dream Machine project as an elevator pitch during the Reasons To conference at the Brighton Dome. The Brighton meeting was full of digital creators and artists pushing the edges of what is currently possible. Serious inspiration from Robert Hodgin, Stefan Sagmeister, and Brighton buddies Cyriak Harris and Seb Lee-Delisle, to name just a few.

Here is a 3 minute blast from me on what is brewing on the Dream Machine project, with thanks to the organisers.

Kate Genevieve - FOTB2010 from Reasons.to

Dream Machine is an experiment in group storytelling and featured the work of over 40 artists and animators: it is a strange story of sleep experimentation and imagination told through comics, live performance, radio broadcast and twitter. Commissioned for Brighton’s White Night Festival 2010, and directed by Sarah Bird, Kate Genevieve and Abbie Stanton, the narrative culminates in an animation projection event that will light up the Georgian mansion, Marlborough House, in Central Brighton.

The Dream Machine website has more information, the open call, and a link to an online version of the comic newspapers.

Dream Machine Project is Live

Full details on submissions at www.bangdreammachine.com

Let me introduce the main character and inventor of the Dream Machine, Dr William Hobton:

Our doctor, once a youthful inventor and a leading light of the Royal Society, has staked his reputation on a radical new method to make humanity "better". In 1792 he is dedicating his life to solving the problems of “fear” and "uncertainty" and has retreated into his sleep hospital, the Old Steine’s Marlborough House, to begin bold dream experiments. However, centuries have passed, and he has remained jealously guarding his discoveries (and his patients!) for over three hundred years. His only companion is the incredible and ingenious Dream Machine, the contraption by which he keeps his patients in their slumber.

In 2010 his youthful zeal has faded to bitter old age, disillusioned and distracted, unable to complete his experiment, the Doctor dwells within the mansion still. There is something he is... missing.

And, his patients? Well, they're done with this shit. They want to wake up...

How will his experiment end? And just how long has he gone without sleeping?

The 18th century Doctor character design has been created by the brilliant comics artist Andy P. The image above shows the Doctor at the beginning of his experiment, standing proud with his patented Dream helmet.

Visit our website for all the details on the comics or animation open call to artists. We would love you to create with us. Deadlines are end of September and early October depending on what stream you enter.

NB. Just a note to people submitting comics, the only submissions that need to incorporate the Dr character is the 3rd root, the colour newspaper commission of a vision on the streets of Brighton. For any other submissions go wild with your own content, and don't tie in the Dr character: these short narratives can communicate your own dream comics or illuminated wonders on your own terms (as long as it fits the size templates!) For those tackling the colour newspaper, please reach out and contact us, as we are commissioning key parts of the narrative, and would love to be in contact.

Dream Machine: Brighton Illuminated

Just finished the holding page for the Dream Machine site with a beautiful illuminated font by mooshpie. It's a good time to explain what this project is all about...

Dream Machine is BANG's 2010 White Night commission. Our idea was to see if a collective could tell a story around a place using a variety of media. We’re laying down a backstory in two comic’s newspapers, which imagines the goings on inside Marlborough House, an Edwardian Mansion house in Old Steine, Brighton. Then we open invitation to animators, comics artists, illustrators and musicians to respond.

The story itself is written as a fun, schlocky take on the festival theme of Illuminations. We used the melting pot of the Enlightenment era as inspiration: a time of invention and expert explanation of biological processes, discoveries that laid the foundation stones for the development of science and technology, yet—at the same time—there was wide public interest in the mysteries: in intuitive, mythic and imaginative life. The spiritual works of Swedenborg circulated around Europe in the late 1700s, Henry Fuseli's painting "The Nightmare" vividly captured the weird alternative reality of dreaming, and William Blake and his wife in Lambeth bore witness to hosts of angels in the trees of Peckham Rye. We grew the story of the Dream Machine from the historical interplay and brewing tensions between scientific rationalism and collective imagination.

The story we are inviting people to create is an alternative history for Marlborough House. As our story goes: 

The dream Doctor has retreated into the Brighton mansion with his invention - the "Dream Machine" - pushing away mundane relations, he dedicates his days to his important experiments that will discern and explain the dreams of his patients, and thereby provide a definitive explanation for everything. However, the experiment has gone on a very long time. The patients have slumbered through to the present day: it’s now 2010 outside, though very much still 1792 inside. The Doctor still works away, dutifully repeating his tests, yet deep inside, a fear is growing: perhaps his original premise was flawed? One thing is certain: the dreamers want to wake up.

Comics newspapers will develop the narrative; these newspapers will be distributed around Brighton in October. As well as visualising varieties of histories for Marlborough House, our collective story re-imagines Brighton as a dream city inhabited by many beings: sea creatures on the waterfront, the playful fun-loving cats of the North Laines, and stranger creatures too, lights in the skies above Brighton, presences by the old well of St Ann's Well Gardens. The comics narrative ends on a cliffhanger...

And the story is picked up and brought to life during the White Night festival with a live animation projection finale. If you come down on the night you’ll see animated dreams and visions pour out of the windows of the Georgian mansion onto the facade, and perhaps even meet the dreamers as they escape the building after so long.

The event will be soundtracked by a specially commissioned radio show, that we hope will go out live on the night: we are remixing HG Wells’ War of the World radio takeover, except instead of an alien invasion, the streets of Brighton are visited by the dreams and visions of its inhabitants. Strange to think that H.G.Wells wrote The Time Machine at the end of the nineteenth century.

The Dream Machine is a collective project born out of a love for animation, comics and cephalopods.

Keep an eye on the website as the callout will go live here: www.dreammachine.com

New Personal Site

My personal site is over here: http://kategenevieve.com

This Blog will serve as a space to chart the development and processes of the BANG collaborations. Following on from the 2009 Future Machine, the 2010 project Dream Machine will mix comics, projected animation, radio broadcast and live actors, and culminate in a live event at Brighton's White Night Festival on the 30^th October.

Flickers premiers at Brighton Festival

We've just finished filming the final footage for Rachel Henson's Flickers: Off the Path. It is sad not to have a solid reason to run and leap around Stanmer Park in a smock anymore.

I've been working on this project as an animator / performer. You can see the results and wander the flick book trail in May. Tickets are selling out, so please visit the Festival Website if you would like to venture into the animated woods.

BAFTA win at Plug-in Media

Big and Small wins the 2009 Children's BAFTA in the interactive category.

My incredible colleagues at Plug-in Media are all shocked, but it must be real as we have photos: here are Dom, Juliet and Seb taking it in turns to hold the face of gold.

It’s been a pleasure working on such an ambitious project with this talented bunch. Fun too to make sound effects with my daughter in the bath. The Big and Small House is really an impressive world.

Production on Plug-in's next big, interactive adventure is well underway and I’m enjoying working on 3D animation. It’s another one for the BBC - due for release next March.