Oneiric Lab: a public urban dream unit to investigate the architecture of daydreams

Portable geodesic dome, copper-woven hammock, daydreamer, lab assistant

So much of our contemporary business and busyness involves racing from one thing to another, producing, consuming, addicted to our mobile devices, constantly sending and receiving email, voice mail, updating our tweets, reblogging our blogs, running to and from the tube, to and from work, to and from each other. It is very unfashionable to have time, lots of time. It is very unfashionable to be “idle”, to do “nothing” with that time. It is very unfashionable to create a physical space in which to do that “nothing”. Daydreaming is the perfect example of such an “idle” and “wasteful” activity. Ironically, as many artists have intuited and as groundbreaking new neuroscientific research confirms, the practice of mind wandering or daydreaming exercises the brain much more rigorously than traditional puzzlesolving techniques. Not only is the brain more exercised, but this activity also sets the stage for creative problem solving and intuitive solution finding. Vancouver artist, Suzi Webster and Vancouver neuroscientists Dr Kalina Christoff and Melissa Ellamil share a belief in the importance of mindwandering, and have pooled their interdisciplinary research to propose the public art installation oneiric lab; public urban dream unit that creates both a physical and a mental architecture to promote daydreaming as a vital activity within urban public space.