Waking Dream

An immersive 360° video, taking visitors on a disorienting journey through the subconscious of a sleeping commuter.

SDNA created Waking Dream – inspired by the Roundhouse’s history as a former Engine House and as a venue for experimental and avant garde music and live art. The installation presented intensely surreal dreams dreamt by the communter when lulled to sleep in transit.
In August 2011, internationally renowned artist, architect and designer, Ron Arad invited his favourite musicians and friends to create unique work for Curtain Call, his 360° interactive installation showing throughout the summer at the Roundhouse.

 

SDNA have engaged with the possibilities of a 360-degree screen as well as the original function of the Roundhouse as a railway engine shed, to create a work based around the surreal dream of a commuter who has nodded off in transit. Featuring multiples of figures dressed in smart office garb and choreographed to a rhythmical soundtrack reminiscent of rumbling trains, it’s visually and aurally gripping. Time Out

SDNA’s film, A Waking Dream, possibly makes use of the space best. Turning the curtain into a giant zoetrope, the audience is left to marvel as figures appear confused before embracing the space, dancing, leaping and walking. In a demonstration of how truly

interactive art should work, A Waking Dream’s protagonists mirror the experience of the viewer. The Arts Desk 

 

SDNA’s Walking Dreams is the perfect example of how dance and human physicality can collaborate with technology to create something uniquely rhythmic and cohesive. It also takes advantage of the opportunity of a circular space and alternates between splitting attention and guiding it. The fact that some pieces are hypnotic and often a bit trippy, while others are playful and humorous proves the installation’s versatility. A Younger Theatre

In ‘Waking Dreams’ by London agency SDNA, contemporary dancers perform simple motifs that were magnified and duplicated to create an almost Busby Berkeley-like canon of movement. The Eye Magazine

Waking Dream has been shown as part of Curtain Call, recentlyrenamed ‘720 Degrees’, at the Isamu Noguchi garden of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem in 2012, at the Singapore International Festival of Arts in 2016 and back at the Roundhouse in the same year.

It has now been converted into 360 film best viewed using a VR headset such as Google’s Cardboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55I11wVpKF8&t=52s

Conceived, directed and produced by Valentina Floris and Ben Foot
Soundtrack by Takatsuna Mukai
3D Animation Zsolt Balogh
Stylist Aya Kamarek
Performers: Nina Fog, Zoe Jones, Marcin Rudy and Katarzyna Witek