Dream 1, 2 & 3 (video series) by Valerie LeBlanc & Daniel Dugas
A trilogy of videopoems by long-time collaborators Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas in Canada, the Dream series was realised as part of an artist residency at the historic Deering Estate in Miami, USA. From the synopsis for Dream 1:
In September 1925, on board the steamship SS City of Paris, en route back to the United States, James Deering suffered a heart attack and died. After the deaths of both James Deering and his brother Charles, their houses became museums bequeathed for public enjoyment.
In this fictional account of three imagined dreams, Charles Deering addresses the death of his younger brother James.
The synopsis for Dream 2:
Charles awakes from a premonitory dream in which many strangers visit their homes but neither he nor James lives there. The letter is almost a question to his brother about his health.
Each of the videos makes use of a split screen, bringing two different image streams into play with each other, and with repeated visual elements across the trilogy. The layered images are haunting and poetic in conveying the fictional dreams, an interesting concept. I find the mood across all three videos somehow reminiscent of La Jetée by Chris Marker.
Valerie LeBlanc narrates the imagined letters from Charles to his brother.
The Dream 3 synopsis:
Charles has a dream within a dream in which he is overcome by a great sadness. He is relieved that the visions dissipate in his waking reality.
Aside from this Dream trilogy, the artists’ time at The Deering Estate gave rise to a number of other videopoems, photographs, audioworks and installations. All together they make up a larger, overall residency project called Oasis. The artists’ wrote a journal of their experiences and creativity during the residency at the project website.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
