Single Channel HD video duration 7’40 sec stereo audio. Reverie was selected for The Director’s Cut, The Blake Prize 2015.
Reverie is a single channel video made in 2015 at the international artist’s residency Intercreate – SCANZ in New Plymouth, NZ. The residency theme was “Water and Peace”. Reverie draws on Islamic and indigenous spiritual traditions of non-figurative pattern-making from nature, as an aid to contemplation, lucid dreaming and meditation. Comprising video shot at the mouth and at the head waters of the sacred Oakura River in the Taranaki, NZ, and percussion by drummer Jeff Wegener, Reverie deploys gently changeful rhythms and dynamics, embodying the infinite self-similarity yet constant variance of watery forms as they unfold across time.
The work operates on affective, pre-cognitive levels. The subtle but constant variances of water – influenced by turbidity, surface tension, light refraction, wind, angle – contained and refracted within the kaleidoscopic form, are intended to evoke a stimulating yet meditative experience – a short term detachment from one’s surroundings, in short a reverie.
At the same time, water is a universal metaphor for consciousness, perception and feeling. Water features in many cultures as a symbol for abundance, transformation and depth potential, from the clearest fresh running stream, to the darkest ocean valley, manifesting in the stories and shapes of water gods, goddesses and creatures – some personifying the dangers of visiting ‘the depths’, others celebrating the brave spirit of those who do. Some – like Neptune of the western pantheon – represent both the beauty and intensity of grand illusion, and the crashing depths of dis-illusion. With its soulful combination of constancy, ubiquity and infinite variance, water is used to self-communicate our state of consciousness.