1GB REM

… the dreams of code – reflections of the “unflat, unrectangular, and infinitely multidimensional space of pure computation” *…

1GB REM is a reactive installation and very (very!) simple PD patch allowing us to experience the dreams of code.

Installation Setup
A camera “looks” onto the computer screen and feeds back what it “sees” there.#

Every visitor can influence the dream by a simple motion of the mouse,

and/or by moving the camera.

The visitor’s interaction doesn’t evoke any preprogrammed effects. The only thing the PD patch does is to take a live video feed from the camera and visualize it “fullscreen” on the monitor.

the patch >>>>

That’s it…..well almost. I’m still working on a better way to achieve two separate fullscreen visualizations with GEM (one on the monitor, the other on the projector).

The following video and images show some of the things which can happen …

play the video >>>>

download video / Quick Time 720x 576 / 58MB >>>>

Dreams can be seen as a surface reflecting various levels of the consciousness.

Understanding dreams as a projection surface of consciousness made me ignore the temptation of programming complex dream-like simulations, and directed the creation of a ‘as simple as possible’ patch, which does no more than reflects – surprisingly, this lead to an intriguing visual output.
Visitors can interact with the piece in a very basic matter and so influence the “dream”, but their interaction doesn’t evoke any preprogrammed effects.

Concept

Although wakefulness thinking has a logical structure, when it gets reflected onto the dream “projection surface” the logical structure changes into a different order, which may have its own logic but it is hardly apprehensible by the usual wakefulness thinking and describable by the language.

Brainwaves and other physical data related to the state of dreaming are recordable, but the actual dream – visual (or other sensory) and emotional “projection” remains practically impossible to access by any other than the dreamer himself.

1GB REM doesn’t examine the multiple layers of the logical code structure, it doesn’t record the electrical impulses of its REM sleep phase, but it enters the dream of the code.

*John Maeda (Maeda & Media, 2000, p.145)