Mine Kaplangi On Tina Kohlmann’s exhibition Oracular Utterances and its companions
September 2022
Dream Notes
Dream Notes were inspired by The Storyteller compilation of Walter Benjamin, some of them are fiction, and some are completed flashbacks of daydreams. Some of them are actual dreams that haunted the night and summoned the old.
We all tell stories; this time, we were called to give attention to the set that was prepared to hold the story within. The space, the sound, and the combination of materials will help the story to come alive and continue its journey through the cracks.
Dream I – the crack
I thought I saw you and your masks, but now when I try to remember them, I realise that it was the preparation room I was working in for your ceremony. All that preparation has put you already in a meditative and almost aroused state. You didn’t even move for a second. Someone checked your pulse every two minutes, ensuring you were breathing.
know thyself
It was difficult not to fall into this state, where reality was blurry, and I felt I was in a Rick & Morty episode where if I stayed close to the crack you were rather opening, enlarging, I was going to suck into that world blindly. And it was not my ceremony, so I made sure you were breathing [and you were, heavily!] and left the room for the pass.
Dream II – the gas
Once there was a valley at night with a temporary ignition; such a difficult task to describe these types of visually magnificent dreams to others, right? The valley had no wind that I was confident we were indoors, but the outdoor part was referred to as the rest of the universe. If you feel that the universe will hold the space you are discovering, it can still be recognised as an indoor space, maybe? Then I moved like the wind, calmy flew over the hills of the valley and reached the gentle source of bright light razoring the dark sky. I looked into it; it was the gas fuming, boiling to become the ladder. Too heavy to experience all at once, I closed my eyes, which was also cheating; the visuals were still there and kept me choking for another couple of minutes until I woke up in bed.
Dream III – the water
When the water drips from her mouth,
mesmerised by the smoke
I stand near and try to hear the soothing voice of her moist breathing
limestone-coloured floor cracked in half
creating this floral gate into the abyss
where the gas of the eternals sneak out
carries her slow movements
leaves from the laurel trees chewed and sucked
A wheel of time
radical fairies whispering
resisting beings to dominant forces.all the weird life forms have been screaming since Pythia came to power in a trance,
opened the gates of in-between worlds
mad over love
rightfully angry
released by the ones who were in need
inspired by poetry
cursed by words
under the influence of the eye-blurring mist
she had to float in the air
carried by the three-legged familiars
you can lose your way in the swirling roots of the universe
but hers was quite enlighted
by the radical fairies
by the laurel trees
by the oracles of all times.
Dream IV – the ladder
Let me try to remember the feeling… It was quite an intense journey, to be honest. I was in a mystical forest, early afternoon, quiet, yet you hear the leaves breathing; the forest is ancient, quite powerful. It tried to protect its nature fairly before letting me in. I had a difficult time inhaling the smell of it, couldn’t open my mouth, and my vision was blurry. I couldn’t focus on the details, but even when my eyes were closed or blocked, my vision was clear as a sky, as if I was seeing with my senses, not through my sight. I moved slowly around the giant wet plants, tried to feel the humidity of the surfaces, and then moved along with the heavy breathing of this living being. That was quite an erotic experience as I felt accepted and let in.
Then I arrived at an old cracky house, the door was open and I heard a murmuring sound coming from the kitchen, with a warming heat from boiling water surrounding my eye leaves. I listened to the song with my hands and tasted the spices from the water with my ears.
Follow the perfume of that aroma and spell combination until I reach a dark corner where I could see myself from a reflection of a giant silver and tired pot. Well, I didn’t have a face! Well, I probably never had a face in the dream, but one can compare these worlds with ours to create others, right? I felt like I was on ethylene, looking into many possible worlds where my existence had been accompanied by others and merged into new beings. I was wet out of excitement and quite emotional to realise that I was willing to leave everything and say my goodbyes. Life doesn’t need to be a journey; it can be multiple layers of odysseys; where if you were one of the lucky ones to have the leaves to sense the rest, you should perceive this path not only for yourself but for others.
Then the pot cracked, and I saw a double vision of my reflection, choked by leaves and many green plants; my eyes were rooty and covered, a creeper was moving along my neck and reached my ears, filling them with crumbling sounds of its creatures. I wasn’t looking like a fairy or a creature but was ready to become something else, feeling finally accepted by the forces of nature.
Suddenly I realised that the voices of other timelines shook the reason/s of my aroused intestines; representation of my face my figures were rooting for the ancient rituals, making sure that they were continuous, pagans‘ movements merged into yesterday’s raves, waves covered my intentions, loosen my tightness, where I realised that nothing belonged to any of those times yet to all as bare with me as I try to relearn to cherish the darkness and unlearn the preciseness of the messenger.