★ ECLIPSE Almanac page 38 ★

Although regarded as individual experiences by and large we believe dreams are inherently social. They are always already shaped by cultures of dream sharing, interpretation and their cultural representations. Most profoundly dreams are proto-cinematic experiences and inform how we view cinema, as much as cinema informs our dreams. We relate the cinematic-performative interpretation of dreams to a psychoanalytic dimension of the oracular (e.g. wish fulfillment) and a demystification of neoliberal new-age appropriations of the oracle.

Under the covers, the waves! is a dream enactment methodology for camera that nurtures sociality through dreams, in the guise of collective cinematic production. Invited participants were asked to journal their dreams in advance and bring a dream to the work, performed in Berlin over two weekends in May 2021. Through a series of exercises and predefined roles, these dreams were dispossessed of their original dreamers and shared with a divination medium chosen from the group. This medium would direct the dream for the camera, casting from the group performers and a jester-type coringa figure, to act as agonistic and agential assistant director.

Deflections of the efficiency of a film shoot, its hierarchies and work relations in the form of disruptions, acts of care, silliness, flirtation, play, absurdity, or failure created stages for the unconscious to emerge and were actively searched out by us. In that sense, we approached dream enactment as access to collectively relate to unconscious and imaginary experiences within labour relations, as a site of the unconscious and a front line of the molecular revolution (instigating social change on the intersubjective level).

Playing under the cover of roles, we approach oceanic feelings in the collective rupture of the dream screen.

Trakal & Jack Hogan, Under the covers, the waves!, 2021.
Cinematic participatory performance.
Unexclusive Bonus Features, behind-the-scenes interviews with Popo Fan, Steph Holl-Trieu, Alice Z Jones, courtesy of the artists.
With the support of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and very project space Berlin.