To me dreams can be composed of random mini-sequences; dreamscapes are another frontier of our subconscious that manifest and shows itself after being suppressed during our consciousness when we are awake.
This piece is titled ‘Twisted Kids’ as these are some of the most vivid dreams I had as a child.
The sequence starts with me waking up, intoxicated, ambling around the bar before I slowly start to fade into whiteness, and slowly the dreams start to come in.
Sound:
‘Applause – Lady Gaga’
Bar background noise
In this tripartite, the first talks about my rather domineering relationship with my sister. In the dream, my sister came home one day to become more snide than her usual self.
It’s a reference to ‘Groundhog Day’ and how the event keeps looping before I make a different choice (in this dream how she was trying to change me a be a better person) that alters the sequence of events.
This dream kept recurring in primary school and I was paranoid about my sister trying to kill my mother in the toilet (which is changed to myself in this work) such that I will always keep my eyes on my sister’s bedroom at night in case she gets up to kill my mom.
Sound:
‘Sayang Adik Sayang’
Using a lullaby often hummed by Malay parents when rocking a baby to sleep, I composed lyrics that gives off an innocent with a sinister, underlying vibe. This is apparent when one actually listened to the lyrics (see below).
The second dream is one of desires and wants; and how choices have consequences and one have to deal with it.
This is a remake of my dream of entering heaven as a child, where I ascended up to heaven (which turns out to be a house on super high stilts and god, dressed in a Malay ceremonial garb, offered me unlimited food and beverages.
This sequence is inspired by ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’.
Sound:
‘Happy Tree Friends intro’
The last dream is a dream I had when I was around 5 years old. In the dream, I got chased around by levitating clothes out to strangle me. This is fitting for the last dream as it is a dream where I can never wake up of, and one where I am still experiencing even in my conscious being.
This dream represents society’s perception of me, and how, even though I look confident in my appearance and of the clothes I wear, I still feel self-conscious about people’s judgement regarding the clothes I wear. My face is replaced by vector masks (I am personally creeped out by 2D masks because it looks unreal) to represent how i am ashamed of being judged and ashamed of myself for allowing people’s criticisms to affect me.
Sound:
Whispers of my own voice
Reflections:
This project enables me to work around the vivid dreams I had as a kid and explore how dreams can be interpreted and perhaps by understanding our dreams – which is an extension of our subconscious thoughts – we can better ourselves.
Supplementary piece:
