Sourcing My Bedroom Furniture

The first thing i did for my installation was getting the furniture, this is because it helped me picture how the final installation would look and give me a better idea for sizes with the other sections. As I already had an idea what I wanted the final piece to look like, i knew what kind of furniture I needed. The bed was the first piece, I wanted something wooden because it give a softer tone than a hard metal bed, along with a warmer feeling than you get from a cold metal bed. The recycled bed I had chosen works well for the atmosphere i'm trying to create because of it's dark colour and scratches showing that it is worn, which is important to show that it is a restless night. I thought that having my film played on a tv beside the bed adds to room aswell as enphasizing my aim to show dreams coming into the "real life" by having my dream sequence film integrated into the space. I needed a bed side table for something to put the tv on as well as adding to the bed room feel. When picking the bedside table I wanted it to be wooden so it wouldn't contrast with the bed.

When putting the furniture together in the space I switched the tv and bed around so the bed wasn't up against the wall. This opens up the space more making it bigger and inviting that they feel more in the room and involved. This also put the tv in the background making people look over the bed to view the film. So that i could plug in the tv and link the DVD player to it, I had to have a hole drilled in the wall so that I could reach a plug and place the DVD player elsewhere, this stopped me from having wires running across my instillation which would have ruined the atmosphere.

My Space

For my plan of my final installation to work I will specifically need a corner for me to create what seems like a room. I'd also need it to be quite big area for me to be able to fit an entire bed in aswell as extra space for my floor idea.

When I got my area I didn't have to change much of my plan because the biggest wall was on the right I had to reflect my plan accordingly for it to be the same.

Planning My installation

For my final installation I will be making a bedroom that is inspired by Tracy Emin's "My Bed". I will be doing a similar piece to this, creating a bedroom that shows restless sleep. I will be adding to this view of a room with a physical representation of dreams, to show show dreas merging with reality.
As the actual spaces for installations were not given to us at first i had some idea of what i wanted it to be like before I began creating it. This general idea helped shape the development of the space once it had been assigned, however I was unable to get a real plan in place before i could see what i was working with. Once I was able to get a feel for this, I could begin work on developing my ideas into the area I was given.

Dream Patches

I struggled to begin my dream patches because it's hard to make or draw something that doesn't exist like dreams. It was hard to picture these small stories into one single image without experiencing them. So I moved on from trying to make collages from the existing dreams of my survey results to looking at common dream themes as this would make it broad to create an idea of a story on a textile patch.

I looked at Dadaism for collage ideas of how to set out dream images, to use a lot of random images to create collages of a dream stories. Dadaists imitated the techniques developed during the cubist movement through the pasting of cut pieces of paper items. They used scissors and glue to express their views of modern life through images.

I also referred to the work of Tilleke Schwarz that uses a mixture of images and text in embroidery that contains a narrative quality. Schwarz's work would then over through Vicky Lindo's work for image design of patches as it would worked better with the collages, as it'd be like the collages but in a textile element.

Eventually I found that I was going nowhere with the collages by trying to use images I had sourced from the internet and the collage I was trying to make with these didn't create much of a story. This wasn't going in the direction that I wanted for these patches so I scrapped the idea for these patches. Instead of my dream patches I made the decision to change all my patch ideas to my developed sleeping. This works out easier as I have already developed sleeping images and it will add to my idea of dreams coming out into real life within my installation and make it more obvious what I’m trying to express by seeing images that describe it.

Initial Ideas for Quilt

When making patches for a quilt I looked at Vicky Lindo’s for its lucid stitch and appliquéd textile that show simplistic childish fantasies. I want to look at the stories of dreams that I had acquired from a survey I sent to everyone at my college.

My original idea is that I'll use the results from my survey as of existing dreams to use as ideas for the dream patches on my quilt while referring to Vicky Lindo's hand-embroidered pieces as a style for how the patches would look.

Thinking of patch ideas I came up with other types of patches I could include in my quilt plan, adding patches of sleeping images and text of dream quotes. I realised I'd need a boarder and looking back to my resources in my research folder I took inspiration from Jane Dunnewold's Baby quilt to have text stitched around the patches on the boarder instead of patches of text.

Fabric Dreams

Moving on from photography with the same aim i've attempted to show dreams on sleeping images using stitching, applique and paint.

Scratched Photos

Originally inspired by Soo kim's hand cut photography i attempted to cut and scratch into my own photos of sleeping images to attempt to describe with the marks dreams transgressing into a consious state.


i developed on from this by marking into undeveloped film of sleeping images again. i scratched, added bleech, ink, oil pastel and put it through a typewriter. The effect from these were quite nightmareish by looking damaged and partly over exposed. when i sent the film developed there was a problem where half of the images were printed incorrectly whihc i think really addes to the effect i was trying to create.

Film Resources & Filming

For me to set this out right i needed to look a existing resources for my films.

Doppelgangers: Seeing Themselves
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Youth in Revolt (2009)
Fight Club (1999)
Black Swan (2011)
Biffy Clyro - "Mountains" music video (2010)

Process of Filming:
I set this in a class room as i've found from research that it's common for people to have dreams of being back at school. I needed these two people to be doing something when together in shot so i made a script for them both to interact, but because what they are saying isn't more important than them being together i made it simple as for just a disagreement. To make this i needed to use split screen meaning i would have to film this twice using the same person but also making sure the camera aswell as everything else remained in the same position.
Reffering to Fight Club I made obvious differences of the same person by the clothes they wore and the character they portraid. I made one wear lighter colours while the other wore dark colours giving the idea that the lighter dressed character is the good guy and the other is the bad guy. I contrasted with this by making the darker dressed character the light hearted and easy going character, where as the other is quite irritable.

Reversed Chronology: An Array of Different People Walking Through a Room With Someone Without Them Realising
Dreams: Cinema of Subconscious Documentary
Michel Gondry's Solving a Rubix Cube (2006)
Coldplay - "The Scientist" music video
The Pharcyde - "Drop" music video

Process of Filming:
Taking this idea from the inception dvd's dream documentary (Dreams: Cinema of subconscious) of an array of different people walking through a room without someone realising. i set this in a home for it to be more unusual that there are people walking through their house. I needed this to be in a continuous filming process as the person in the middle will constantly be in shot while the people walk behind. As I dont have many people to help me with this i'll be using them in shot a few time for walking by but in different outfits. For this i would have them getchanged quickly behing camera while others are in shot. I'll need to plan out exactly what people were wearing and what order they go out in order for this to work. i would be reversing this footage for these people to be walking unusally so i had the people walk backwards when filming for me to reverse the footage for them to walk forward.

Backwards Smoking: Reversed
Shutter Island (2010)
Richard Billingham's "Tony Smoking Backwards" (1998)

Process of Filming:
I'll be Filming someone smoking and once i've got the footage i'll reverse it for the smoke to go backwards. I've filmed at different angles to switch between. After filming i looked back at the footage to find that the smoke didn't show up on camera. As i dont have time to film this again and test out how i can fix this i've had to remove this idea.

Travelling Through the Woods: Following
Francis Alys' photographic documentation of expressing journeys using various materials like unraveling a wool jumper
City of the Lost Children (1995)

Process of Filming:
As i've planned this sequence the most in exact detail for which shots i'd be filming and what order. I took a trip to hartshill hayes woods to find a completely wooded area to film this. During filming i added some extra footage of a close up of my character picking up string and filming the view upwards to the trees above while moving.

Transitional dreams: linking between dream footage
Len Lye
Stan Brakage
Zineb Sedira
Foo Fighters - "Everlong" music video

Process of Filming:
i'll be layering the footage for these creating a middle transitional of dreams. I'll be painting onto clear film at the unravel workshop (longest painted film in britain) where i'll record the results, mix ink in water like Zineb Sedira and drip ink down a plane of glass similarly to the transitions into dream by Michel Gondry's video for Foo fighter's "everlong"