In the first chapter of his book, Poetics of Space, Bachelard discusses the home and its role in allowing its inhabitant to dream. “The house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace” (6). The house is a place for the inhabitant to enter a dream state, to be taken elsewhere. “He experiences the house in its reality and in its virtuality, by means of thought and dreams” (5).

 

The Object of Dreams is an apparatus allowing its inhabitant to enter a new reality, one of a dream. In an exploration of capturing the memory of a dream - hazy and unclear - the resultant photos serve as inspiration for the form and experience. The form mimics the sinuous nature of the photos, appearing as though the object has been taken from the dream. Within the object, the inhabitant views an image of a dreamscape (one of the photos from the original exploration) projected onto the surface in front of them, representing the virtuality of the dream Bachelard discusses. Overlaid with the virtual photo is a live image of the inhabitant, representing the reality of Bachelard’s dream. The object is a camera obscura, projecting the real image via a small hole and a series of mirrors, allowing the user to see their self within this dream image, similar to René Magritte’s painting, Not to be Reproduced. Thus, the project also becomes a study of the camera as an architectural apparatus.