Fluid Dreams

Dreams vary from person to person, creating a unique nightly experience for those who have them. However, this isn't to say that they lack commonalities. They take on many forms and often morph throughout the night, and it is through these nightly experiences that many artists have shaped their work. With this in mind, I researched the nature of dreams and how artists have drawn from them, examining how these experiences influence creative expression. 

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    For my thesis, I created a piece that showcases the fluid nature of dreams, drawing from my own nightly experiences. It consists of three main components. The first is a keyframe animation that emphasizes story structure rather than a fully polished animated piece. The second includes rendered and composited frames from this animation, creating a series of style frames. For the final part, I focused on a specific section of the animation in order to explore how the compositing looks in motion. Throughout each component, I combined techniques developed through my education while also learning and experimenting with new ones. 

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    Through my research, I took inspiration from the artists who incorporated their own dreams into their work. Building off of this approach, I began to keep record of my own dreams and how they progressed through the night. One of the major patterns that I noticed was the shift from black-and-white imagery to color within my dreams. Drawing from this observation, I created a piece that follows an unnamed figure waking up in a colorless dreamscape. The only interruption in this dull void is a single flower in the distance. Attracted to the flower, the figure approaches and touches it, causing color to emerge into the dream.