The Field is a virtual version of the online project Dream Archive /www.arhivsnova.hr/, realized in 2013 as the central work of the exhibition Between Heaven and Earth /curated by Branko Franceschi for the 55th Venice Biennale/.
The first public presentation of The Field is taking place from 4th to 6th October 2019 in the Museum of Fine Arts in Split, Croatia.
To date more than 2 200 dreams in different languages have been collected in the Archive - an online domain where the visitors can record their dreams in a textual form. Thanks to a wide global response, a sort of dream pool has been created where numerous introspective and hermetic dream inscriptions testify the ability of the human mind to unconsciously create worlds beyond the control of the conscious self. The starting point of the interactive VR installation The Field is to make visible this phenomenon of creating/constructing dream worlds. Dreams - which emerge as products of bio-virtual reality created by our unconscious - are here paradoxically placed in the field of the so-called ´real´, technically produced virtual reality designed by the conscious mind.
The virtual scene is a ploughed, muddy field in a foggy and rainy autumn morning, above which billboards hover all the way to the horizon. They display selected dreams from the Archive that visitor can read while walking through the field. The perplexing sense of presence in this reified virtual world of dreams, this doubled virtuality, is enhanced through the use of an umbrella as a vehicle - one that is sensed in the real and integrated in the virtual, an object that bridges the dimensions, emulating the way we incorporate our experience into the dreams.
Mixed reality medium is often characterized by a fusion of sensory information that come from real and virtual surrounding simultaneously. In this case, it functions not only to evoke an exceptional physical experience, moreover, it takes the body on a journey through different dimensions, literally realizing the very symbolism of the project.
