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DreamMaker
According to Francis Crick and Graeme Mitchison,
REM sleep serves to remove undesirable data from memory. They suggest
that just as it is important to reinforce certain associations,
it is crucial to weaken others. Suppose, for example, that you had
to remember every detail in your life. Your brain would soon be
stuck in an endless loop of trivial memory. The fact that dreams
are difficult to remember suggests to Crick and Mitchison that the
process might have been designed to erase, rather than to strengthen
certain memories. “We dream in order to forget”. DreamMaker
illustrates this theory. Six buttons on a control panel allow the
participant to manipulate the claw inside a housing, while a monitor
situated on the same panel displays the view of a camera placed
inside the claw. On the monitor, the participant sees various random
snapshots and souvenirs, which symbolize the memories, and thus
the life, of an individual. Another button on the panel controls
the contraction of the claw. In this way, the participant is able
to grab some of these “memories” and drop them through
an opening which carries them out of the housing – memory
– to “reality”. These random images, extracted
from memory, will conform a dream, not as a means to fulfill unconscious
wishes, but in order to be removed from memory.
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• Size:
190x120x60 - Media: stainless steel, three axis motorized
arm, micro video camera, 6" LCD screen, various photographs
and letters. - 1998 |
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