Janine Antoni
For Janine Antoni’s (1993) weaving performance, Slumber, the artist recorded her brain waves as she slept in the gallery at night and, by day, she wove her EEG patterns into a blanket which she then slept under at night. She says ‘this…is coming straight from the unconscious…without the conscious mind’ (ibid.). I feel that Antoni’s work parallels my own, forging links between body, consciousness and the unconscious.
‘Antoni transforms the fleeting act of dreaming into a sculptural process. Between 1994 and 2000, the artist slept while an electroencephalograph machine recorded her eye movement. During the day, Antoni would sit at the loom and weave shreds of her nightgown in the pattern of her REM. The patterns were woven into the blanket that covered the bed where the artist as she slept at night.
In developing Slumber, the artist researched dreams from the vantage of mythology, art history, psychoanalysis, and science. Through her performance, she uses mythology to reinterpret the scientific. As Antoni discusses – “Science had made a machine for the body to make a drawing. I love the idea that if art comes from the unconscious, then this particular drawing is coming straight from the unconscious onto the page without an intercession of the conscious mind.”’
Antoni, J. (1993) Slumber Available at: http://www.janineantoni.net/slumber (Accessed: 1 December 2019)
‘Antoni transforms the fleeting act of dreaming into a sculptural process. Between 1994 and 2000, the artist slept while an electroencephalograph machine recorded her eye movement. During the day, Antoni would sit at the loom and weave shreds of her nightgown in the pattern of her REM. The patterns were woven into the blanket that covered the bed where the artist as she slept at night.
In developing Slumber, the artist researched dreams from the vantage of mythology, art history, psychoanalysis, and science. Through her performance, she uses mythology to reinterpret the scientific. As Antoni discusses – “Science had made a machine for the body to make a drawing. I love the idea that if art comes from the unconscious, then this particular drawing is coming straight from the unconscious onto the page without an intercession of the conscious mind.”’
Antoni, J. (1993) Slumber Available at: http://www.janineantoni.net/slumber (Accessed: 1 December 2019)