Expression Roll is a video in a loop that captures the digital shaman in a moment of rehearsal, stretching their facial muscles and testing expressions in…
Dreamcatcher is a series that investigates the relationship between writing and memory through the prism of digitised dreams, seeking to expose their content to the awakened experience. By materialising personal dream recollections and their aesthetics over an extended period, the project is a continuous research punctuated by mixed-media installations progressively shedding light on mythologies of the transient and liminal. Three questions motivated the project: How can we represent something so elusive that we can only recollect in parts and brief moments? How can we make such an uncertain thing tangible while preserving its polysemy? Can we get more objective sources than their narrations? The interesting aspect of such questions, in both artistic and scientific views, is the tension between our scientific knowledge that establishes strong beliefs about the capacities of the human mind and the desire to deal with the bits that elude representation. Rebuilt with AI in 4 dimensions from brain and semantic data collected during my active sleep sessions and their awakened recollections, oniric landscapes, objects, and characters emerge to reveal this unknown of our lives and its role in human creative capacities. By materialising them, fleeting memories become tangible and make it possible to be re-experienced fully awake, within the aesthetic veil of the Pittoresque and how it deals with spatial compositions and sensible experiences.
Expression Roll is a video in a loop that captures the digital shaman in a moment of rehearsal, stretching their facial muscles and testing expressions in preparation for the performance to come. Where such exercises would ordinarily unfold before a mirror, here Blue Fire Veil directs their gaze outward, meeting that of the visitors. The resulting encounter is both intimate and uncanny: a private act of self-calibration transformed into a shared moment in cycle, suspended between preparation and presence.
Expression Roll is a video in a loop that captures the digital shaman in a moment of rehearsal, stretching their facial muscles and testing expressions in preparation for the performance to come. Where such exercises would ordinarily unfold before a mirror, here Blue Fire Veil directs their gaze outward, meeting that of the visitors. The resulting encounter is both intimate and uncanny: a private act of self-calibration transformed into a shared moment in cycle, suspended between preparation and presence.
Wall mounted TV display.
Series: Dreamcatcher
Version: 2.0.4
Title: Expression Roll
Year: 2026
Type: Single-Channel Audio-Video
Authors: CompMonks, Silke Grabinger
Dimensions / Format: 2160 x 3840 px, 24fps, 13 sec
Materials: var.
Production: CompMonks
Collaboration: Silke Grabinger - Artistic collaboration
©CompMonks, Silke Grabinger