every.when / amsterdam

small preview of personal adventure

My experience of every.when

By Elte Hartland

I got to know Chris Chierego at the start of this last year at the HKU. We worked together on the Crossing Border project, which later became “Wildgroei”. During the project I was impressed by Chris’ ability to create video which seemed very “internal” in atmosphere. By this I mean that the images and movements seemed to come from, and appeal to, the subconscious. Knowing this, I was very curious about how Chris had tackled the subject of dreams.

Stepping into the large, half-lit space where the performance took place, I first noticed the tiled floor and walls, all bare and cracked. Next to the entrance was a long table with VJ and DJ equipment. Chris and his co-performers stood behind the equipment, apparently setting up the show. I was there with a group of fellow students and several other people I didn’t know, about twenty people in all. The room was easily big enough for it not to get crowded. The spectators gravitated towards a chrome half-sphere on the floor, between the table and the center of the room. The half-sphere had red glowing bulbs around it, so maybe that is what drew us. In the center of the room a curtain of circular mirrors hung down, each mirror about a hand across. Several beamers and tall, slim speakers were arranged around the room. The beamers cast a pale blue light on everything, washing out color and depth.

For the performance I must apologize that I can’t remember the use of sound very clearly. As an animator, I am a visual person often taking sound for granted. This could be taken as a compliment to the sound design, as I at least did not notice as an annoyance. Rather, it melded seamlessly with the visual part of the show. The show started with the chrome half-sphere. Several bare light bulbs flashed around it, reflecting against the chrome and casting our shadows back at us across the bare walls of the room. The sense of displacement was immediate as you watched your shadow and those of the spectators jump around the room in a sort of slow-motion stroboscopic effect. Then some of the girls and one guy, seemingly part of the audience, began to move around the room, posing in the light behind, in front or next to the spectators. This had the effect of making you very aware of your body, and theirs, as the performers often tried to squeeze between persons in the audience, or run quickly past. At this point, I started to try to analyze the structure of the performance, because I knew it was about dreaming, and I have been busy researching the subject myself, lately. I think I ‘got’ what Chris was trying to do at this point, as I could imagine myself lying in bed, preparing for sleep, becoming aware of the position my body is in, adjusting, my mind settling down, images of the day flashing through my head. This image was strengthened when the flashing lights were replaced by several beamers projecting black and white images of Chris, lying in bed, struggling to get to sleep. The round mirrors scattered parts of these images around the room, as your mind may scatter thoughts around the inside of your head. The images of Chris in bed were sometimes intersected by images of the glowing red numbers on the display of an alarm clock, showing the actual time right then.

After a while, the video images changed to show the view from the front of a train, in blurred slow-motion, a multitude of tracks spreading out in front of you, with a lot of switches to connect them and make a maze of possible routes to travel. I thought this was a brilliant metaphor for the anticipation of dreaming. Ahead the route is not yet laid out, but several switches together may take you anywhere. I feel this did not display a conscious state of the dreamer, but rather a mental process your brain goes through when consciousness gives way and the barriers separating reality and thought go down. One of the beamers showed the view from the back of this ‘train’, a track which was much straighter than the jumble of tracks in front. I think this represented the leaving behind of rational thought.

Now the dreaming truly began. I am sorry to say I cannot remember the exact order of imagery presented, but I think this is again a compliment to the performance, because I can never exactly remember the order in which I dream, either. I think the first images were those of black, wormlike insect, crawling over each other in a white bowl. Here I can remember the music; it was threatening and not very pleasant, combined with the images. The dancers were scattered around the room at this point, contorting like the worms in the video. This unpleasant experience gave way to an image of a woman standing in a shallow lake, with an umbrella in her hand. At one point she raises the umbrella, after which the ‘dream’ ends and makes way for another. Like all the other video images, the picture of the woman was shown from several angles among the beamers. To me, this represented the way in which you can replay events in your dream, and watch it from several angles at the same time, or how you can see an event from your own point of view but from outside yourself at the same time, projecting onto the screens of your mind. The repeating of shots across several screens reminded me of the circles in which your mind can travel, sometimes constricting itself into shorter and shorter loops if it is a bad, or feverish, dream.

Next came images of the floor of an empty industrial hall, with a white mattress on the concrete floor, surrounded by puddles of water. This came across as a cool, but tranquil place. The industrial atmosphere gave it a slightly disturbing aura, but I think it was the music that made it unthreatening, just curious. This segment represented the cross from one dream into another, the switching to another subconscious track, represented more by the feeling of an atmosphere (the slight sense of loss?), than by a visual story.

The next dream was of a paved garden, surrounded by head-high, abundantly growing green vines. Another woman/girl features here, maybe not the same, but similar enough to the umbrella holding woman in the lake to notice. The girl is ‘playing’ with a yellow and black butterfly, holding it in her hands, and releasing it. The camera follows the butterfly in a slow-motion flight through the garden. At one point, the butterfly is shown against a backdrop of a glass roof, like in a greenhouse, and the performers start talking nonsense to the audience, walking up to someone, speaking gibberish, then moving on. To me, this represented rational thought imposing itself on the dream, the outside trying to get in. Memories of people, some unpleasant, trying to interfere with a personal experience.

I can’t really remember clearly, but suddenly an intrusive alarm clock starts buzzing and chases away the dreams. The glowing red digital display is shown, a sharp contrast to the organic quality of the garden, showing an accurate time. At that point I was so engaged with the performance that it really felt like waking up, suddenly becoming aware that more than half an hour had passed. I think most people in the audience felt the same as we applauded the performers and dancers as the lights came on. Somehow I felt really cold and naked beneath that ugly yellow light, as if I was ripped from a warm safe place. Nevertheless, I felt it was a great experience.

The show had a great balance between imagery, sound and physical presence (the dancers, but also the space of the room itself). The experience still lingers in my mind, but like a real dream it slowly fades and melts away into my subconscious. I hope that after he has graduated, Chris will stay in Holland for a while so I can experience more of his performances.

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