Dreamachine

The Dreamachine is a mind-bending light and sound extravaganza designed to be experienced with your eyes closed. Currently installed in Woolwich, London, the high-sensory experience invites members of the public into the Dreamachine, where kaleidoscopic visual hallucinations are generated by flashing lights and an immersive 360-degree soundscape.

Dreamachine is inspired by an extraordinary but little-known 1959 invention by artist–inventor Brion Gysin. His experimental homemade device used flickering light to create vivid illusions, kaleidoscopic patterns and explosions of colour in the mind of the viewer. Designed to be the ‘first artwork to be experienced with your eyes closed’, Gysin had a pioneering vision for his invention to replace the television in every home in America. Instead of passive consumers of mass-produced media, viewers of his Dreamachine would create their own cinematic experiences. Gysin died before his vision could be realised, but his idea to use technology to reconnect us with our inner lives remains just as radical, and relevant, today. Over sixty years after its original invention, Dreamachine has been radically reimagined as a powerful new kind of collective experience, taking place in every nation of the UK for free. Dreamachine is presented by Collective Act, a producer of powerful large-scale participatory commissions. We are a flexible and independent team that collaborates with a network of artists, freelancers, partners, and festivals to create memorable public projects across the globe. We champion a collective and multi-disciplinary approach to producing new work, creating space for taking risks and the unexpected to bring ambitious ideas to life. As a team, we are driven by the ethos of creating meaningful shared experiences that build connections and help change the way we look at the world. 

Dr. David Schwartzman is a Senior Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Consciousness Science. He is a cognitive neuroscientist, whose research investigates the neural basis of altered states of consciousness. David is working on the scientific and research elements of the programme, which will include a ground-breaking large-scale study of perceptual diversity. 

Professor Anil Seth is a world-leading neuroscientist and public science communicator. He is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and the author of the recently published Being You – A New Science of Consciousness (Faber/Dutton) – an instant Sunday Times Bestseller and Guardian Book of the Week. Anil is working on the scientific and research elements of the programme, which will include a ground-breaking large-scale study of perceptual diversity. “We all have different experiences of the shared world and the Dreamachine brings those differences to light in a beautiful and creative way,” says Seth. “Understanding these differences can be a catalyst, I think, for better communication between people.”

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-gocx50CKmo



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