Don’t be afraid, I’m going to use all caps: I STRONGLY RECOMMEND EVERYONE GO HERE. For at the very least fifteen minutes, or it isn’t done justice. (Not just to the link, but to the actual location, just to be clear).
Dream House is a collaborative sound and light environment by La Monte Young (composer) and Marian Zazeela (visual artist) that’s been up and running at this location since 1993 (though they have been creating similar environments since the 1960s). It is on the third story of a walkup and when you get there you take off your shoes and you enter a room that is purple (or is it red and blue? or white?) and is quite hot. And loud. It’s so loud and the sound pummels you in a manner so visceral you might want to leave at first. Don’t leave! Continue to move around the space, you will be composing a personal and fleeting symphony. I recommend closing your eyes at a certain point. Then I recommend covering your ears and opening them back up in rapid succession. I also recommend jumping, spinning, rolling and sitting completely still for a long period of time.
I can’t praise the realization of this installation enough. In concept it’s so simple, but its simplicity lends itself to such a wealth of meaningful interpretation and such intense bodily experience that I really felt like I reached a real clarity by the time I left. It’s an amplification of human subjectivity and the relation to the world of object. It’s an exercise in subtlety, while also a display of the overwhelming. It asks if experience is communicable, if that’s important, if you’re paying attention, and then if any of those questions matter. And that it’s in this strange, totally livable (but not exactly desirable) space, complete with that kind of unattractive minishag 90′s carpeting sort of adds to it, in the “this space exists anywhere” sense. It’s a dream house: the place you’ve always wanted or the place to have dreams, but really it is a mirror of what the world already is: a human’s singular awareness of our shared space.
More information about the specs of the installation can be found on this page, but honestly I’d recommend first going and then reading about it, to allow yourself the joy of trying to figure out what’s going on. But also, don’t get too hung up on it.
Me at Dream House