Arts House
While You Sleep
Sal Cooper and Kate Neal
7 November 2018
Arts House Melbourne
to 11 November
artshouse.com.au
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| While You Sleep. Photo by Byrony Jackson |
After dying came dreaming.
While You Sleep is as comforting, confusing and nightmarish as dreams.
I wonder if we all dream in the same ways. We can describe our dreams, but our descriptions never get near to what they are like, and our conscious brain does such a good job of making sure we forget what we go through when we sleep.
Co-creators Sal Cooper (animation, visual art) and Kate Neal (music and sound design) use the complex order of a musical fugue structure (I've put an explanatory video at the end of this) to explore the idea of the psychological fugue state, which is often called dissociative or reversible amnesia.
The clash of counterpoint and comfort of harmony in the music (strong quartet, piano and electronics) are supported by hand-made animation videos that feel natural to the music even when the subject matter doesn't from what's on the stage.
The quartet move with their instruments like a chorus or roll on wheeled-chairs, while screens show animations that range from the pianist playing a library of book to a horse being lifted with a crane. On the day after the Melbourne Cup when another horse was killed during the race, this image felt frighteningly spot on.
I don't remember all of what I saw because I was l finding my own way though the images and sounds. Which all brings it back to dreams and their illogical logic, conflicting images and confusing comfort.
It only had a very short season, but will hopefully be seen again.
