My dreams are vivid, and I always find them easy to remember. While the
images that appear in them don’t seem overtly frightening, they are deeply
disturbing to me. These images are often very constrained, as if seen
through a vignette, and move as if in stop motion, frame by frame. They
have the feeling of GIF files. I try to capture their strange and sinister
quality in Nightmare, a film in which I have animated series of black-and-
white still photographs that recreate the scenes in my dreams. In this
respect, the film is a moving self-portrait.
Like my dreams, some of the moving images in the film are of hands and
feet protruding from behind curtains, under rugs and bedspreads, and
through cracked-open doors. While I can see myself in some of the dreams
the images are based on, others have the feeling of looking out from within,
as if through the peephole of an apartment door or through a window to an
urban landscape. All of them have a lack of clarity, soft and sometimes wavy.
As with my dreams, which occur and take place inside my bedroom, the
original photographs for Nightmare were all deliberately made in my
bedroom and apartment.
In recreating my dreams in this way, I have realized that they all relate to
my waking, daytime experience. These elements of daily life only become
frightening when they manifest themselves subconsciously, playing out my
fears and anxiety. For this reason, creating Nightmare has taken some
courage on my part. But the experience has also helped me process and be
less afraid of my dreams, and better understand who I am.