Illusion Chamber:
Unreality Laboratory 1

Instructor: Jason Mohaghegh Date & Time: January 14, 21, 28, February 4, 11, 18, 25, March 3 09:00-11:30 ET

DESCRIPTION: This Seminar will function as an immersive laboratory that studies 15 varying chambers of illusion: Dream, Nightmare, Mirage, Hallucination, Fantasy, Figment (ghost/shadow), Spell, Simulation, Story, Vision, Rumor, Superstition, Miracle, Game, and Lie.

As we enter an age of virtuality, multiverses, inorganic life, and artificial intelligence, it becomes increasingly urgent to trace the long-winding and multifarious histories of illusion across time: from manuals of ancient alchemical circles to the prophetic episodes of medieval mystics, from narcotized poets to horror filmmakers, from contortionists, puppeteers, and circus performers to cosmetologists and mask-makers, from documented instances of mass hysteria to the secret languages of twins, from the folklore of shape-shifting beings to museums of optical, auditory, tactile, ambiguous, physiological, and cognitive illusions.

Each week’s discussion will rotate around the Seminar participants’ select findings as they bring whatever intricate, rare, and obscure examples from around the world to form an archive of the unreal. These examples can be derived from almost any region, era, genre, and medium so long as they experiment with the illusory category in question: mythology, literature, philosophy, anthropology, film, visual art, music, theater, dance, architecture, design, technological devices, video games, underground movements, urban legends, strange objects, ecological phenomena, biogenetic or perceptual distortions. Together, these samples will form their own display cases in an unparalleled collection, fragments that chart the many techniques at work across each rung of unreality’s ladder. If the Surrealists of 1924 wrote in their Revolution No. 1 Manifesto that “We are all at the mercy of the dream,” then our 2024 Lab will reverse this logic to claim now that “All dreams are at our mercy.”

Note: Since the content of each Session will be based on the participants’ individual catalogs, the only primary text we will read together throughout the entire Seminar is the recently-released, enigmatic Book of Sleep by Egyptian author Haytham El Wardany.

Session 1. Intro: History of Illusions
Session 2. Dream (sleep; wish) / Nightmare (fear; return)
Session 3. Mirage (despair; fatality) / Hallucination (drug; madness)
Session 4. Fantasy (wonder; impossibility) / Figment (ghost; shadow)
Session 5. Spell (concoction; utterance) / Simulation (spectacle; perfection)
Session 6. Story (recitation; turn) / Vision (future; radiance)
Session 7. Rumor (insinuation; shame) / Superstition (chance; ritual)
Session 8. Miracle (awe; otherworldliness) / Game (test; play) / Lie (distortion; malice)

IMAGE: Richard Pettibone, Frank Stella, “Tomlinson Court Park (second version)1959″ 1966

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