kate genevieve: 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.

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