In my artistic practice I use video and audio to create immersive video pieces mainly consisting of found footage but also mixing in my own filmed footage and audio. Stock footage has a certain ‘fake perfection’ to it which I find very interesting to use as a contrast to the questionable perceptions of reality. To contrast the falsely perfected stock footage I use a more blurred editing style to show distortion within our perception and represent the difference and confusion of dreams versus reality. Through this method I explore the concepts of reality and the world around us and from how we, as individuals, react differently. My artistic practice explores the distortions that can come from the different versions of reality we all experience causing disassociation. This piece explores the hypnagogic state which is the state from awake to sleep where both the alpha and the theta brain waves are active, this coexistence can result in a wide variety of sensory experiences ranging from mild to intensely vivid hallucinations both auditory and visual more
This can result in such experiences as lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. The small in between of awake and asleep, is home to so many possible distortions of the reality perceived and it is this small space that this piece delves into. The imagery shown within my piece is that of a dreamlike state; the overly perfected found footage contrasted with the filmed footage creating a disjointed world where awake and asleep are blurred, exploring our own senses more into our subconscious senses. Hypnagogic State features imagery of nature, human aspects and time all to show the distortion of the world while in this half asleep distortion of reality. The passage to sleep then the journey of the brain through this state of hypnagogia shown through blurred flying imagery, time passing then finally falling into the kaleidoscope of dream to be reawaken like the blooming flowers.
