DREAM WITHIN A DREAM is a live holographic projection.

It explores several themes: the relationship between reality, dream and virtual reality, tied to reflections on the idea of the version, or copy. Through interactivity, it seeks to reverse the roles. To turn the audience into the art object itself, and have them stand outside themselves, looking in. 

The title is a reference to a poem by E. A. Poe, which alludes to Descartes’ famous philosophical question: “How do we know we are not dreaming?”

I thought the medium of the hologram would offer a fittingly ephemeral representation of the concept, the glitches in the final projection of it serving as reminders of its virtual nature today and providing a contemporary interpretation of it. Through frame differencing, the code almost mimics the process of realising – in a dream – that we are in fact dreaming, by analysing the differences between each frame and the one before, in the same way we look for clues and anomalies that might reveal our dream state.

The hologram as distorted, virtual version of reality, also seeks to comment on the nature of art consumption today: the ways in which people experience art primarily online, thus effectively witnessing versions or iterations of the artwork itself. Since it is movement that activates the projection, the audience is not only in control of the artwork but part of it; this is breaking the wall between the maker, the viewer, and the object.

CODE:

The program is based on basic frame differencing and uses p5.js as language. 

The code runs through each of the pixels, analysing the differences between the current and previous frame, and subsequently assigning that difference to each of the RGB channels in the following frame. I then added arbitrary values to each channel in order to create two different colour filters that alternate randomly.

Finally, the processed output camera feed is drawn four times, rotated and translated, in order for each image to mirror the one opposite, and positioned at each of the four cardinal points. This results eventually in the illusion of the holographic projection, which appears thanks to the light bouncing off the four sides of the inverted see-through pyramid, positioned at the centre of the screen.

I tried to use an off-screen buffer, in order to add some generative drawing of autonomous agents to the visuals, but it sadly resulted in it crashing my computer. Nonetheless I am happy with the aesthetics and interactivity of the piece which, although as I have come to discover requires quite specific light conditions, worked smoothly for the duration of the entire exhibition. 

Here is a link to the code in action:

HARDWARE:

As I had never built anything like this I was slightly apprehensive about tackling the construction of the physical structure that was to support the hologram.

I started by prototyping the see-through pyramid in small scale with acetate paper, and then with thicker see-through plastic that I laser-cut in bigger scale, until I arrived at the measures that worked with the dimensions of the screen I was to use.

I tried using glue to fix the sides together, but the result was too messy, forcing me to come up with a different solution. I bought some small hinges and hand-drilled holes on the sides of the pyramid in order to assemble the structure without having to glue it and was very pleased with the result. It was through a functional adjustment that the aesthetics effectively started coming together. I wanted the structure to be delicate, inconspicuous and minimal, since it was only to support the projection. In the dark of the exhibition room, the black plinth was to almost blend with the background, and a ring of seven lonely LEDs to lure people closer, as the hologram started flickering in its cage.

Ideally and in hindsight, the piece would have worked best in a dark narrow corridor, only allowing a few people at a time to approach it from afar and in silence, but I think it still retained the mystery that I was trying to achieve, regardless of its setting.

I am overall very happy with it and learned a lot during the process of making the whole structure from scratch.