Briefly, Butterfly Dreams

Description

“Once I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering here and there, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awoke, and there I was, truly myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”

Briefly, Butterfly Dreams is a soft computational object that holds fragments of dreams. Instead of following the person, dreams are embedded within the pillow. Each visitor who lies down continues the dream from the point where the previous one left off. By turning an intimate and personal object into a collective experience, the work imagines dreams not as private possessions, but as atmospheres that linger in places and materials. The pillow invites visitors to pause and rest and briefly inhabit the suspended space between waking and dreaming, opening up the possibility that the world around them may simply be the dream their butterfly selves are having.