Of Dreaming

Of Dreaming

Of Dreaming is an artificial intelligence dance film about an old-growth forest dreaming. It is a meditation on an old-growth forest on Vancouver Island called Avatar Grove. It is currently adjacent to a land at threat from logging and has sparked a resistance called the Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek Blockade. When I sit and meditate in this forest, I imagine the network of Red Cedar and Hemlock roots weaving and knotting with mycelium exchanging nutrients and knowledge. I once read forests dream, and as I meditate, I wonder if I can dream with the forest and if we can fall into each other’s dreams, because sometimes falling is easier than resisting. Does this forest dream of its birth or death, the fullness of life or coming epochs of deserts? Is it aware of the Joshua Trees 2,482 kilometers south? Does it have nightmares of axes and trucks? Does it sense the activists chaining themselves to its roots? Do these thousand-year-old forests even perceive all the frenetic activity of us humans? Or does this forest rest and recoil into the soil, slipping into the dreams of the mycelial network waiting for a new epoch?

In May 2022, Brian Webb and I collaborated on creating an original dance filmed and motion-captured at Departure Lounge XR. Gary James Joynes created an original score.

This film premiered in the Symbiosis exhibition at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in March 2023 and at the Fungi Film Festival in Portland in November 2023.