1 New Voicemail

What does a house, a phone and a dream have in common? They are linked through intimacy. Framed through a phone voicemail, the audience explore the dreams and nightmares of a house

This film explores the dreamscape of a house, framed through a mobile phone. The film is narrated by a voicemail left for the viewer, a poem which is written by a house. The poem recounts the experiences of a dream, one which is deeply personal to the house but somehow involves you inside doorways and hallways, stuck inside a loop. What you and the house have in common is a sense of entrapment in a never ending loop of your own design.

To capture the essence of a house, I captured various household objects and features such as doors, hallways and lights in various angles, presenting them in an unnatural way for the viewer. In particular, I used chiaroscuro light to highlight the shadows and negative space of the image, with some settings generating a strobe effect, creating a trance like experience.

My main influence for this piece include works by David Lynch, in particular his early short films and his first feature “Eraserhead”, as well as the video game “P.T.”, which bases it’s idea of a looping hallway from works such as “Meshes of the Afternoon” by Maya Deren. This presentation is similar to Lynchian works, namely the use of chiaroscuro lighting and minimalistic sound design. The looping hallway idea from “P.T.” was borrowed to highlight the looping nature of dreaming and the layers of dreams we immerse ourselves within.