Anne Macmillan

Day Dreaming Devices, 2020

Simple paper tools that flatten being in the world. That lower dimensions through a language of apertures. A sequence that cuts though layers of cloud, of entoptic phenomena, and passes though the pursed lips as a perfunctory tune. The ghost of microsaccades leaves a momentary mark on the minds eye, on the drifting atmosphere.

This work was supported by a Canada Council for the Arts research grant. It was completed during a residency with the School of Visual Art in NYC.

In the video Day Dreaming Devices, the view cuts between three modes. Hands. The sky. Eyes closed.
I was thinking about losing the natural ability to daydream, of relying on assists. Of devices to burn the after-image of a kind of visual language into the mind’s eye, to stir the clouds, as a way to bring continuity where it doesn’t belong, to force an empty meaningfulness into oneself and onto the world.

Day Dreaming Devices, 2020 (Excerpt)
Stop-motion video, 2D animation, sound, 1920x1080, 4m 22s (loop)