Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016

Dora Budor’s immersive environment, Adaptation of an Instrument, continuously reacts to our presence: light pulses up and down the walls according to the level of activity within, in motions modeled after the neurological pathways in a human body. The presence of visitors brings Budor’s “instrument” to life, reanimating the image on its ceiling through a conduction of impulses, as though triggering a memory.

That memory is the amphibian rain scene of the Hollywood film Magnolia (1999). By incorporating thousands of special-effect prop frogs used in the film, the luminous ceiling of the work serves to deconstruct the film into its constitutive elements: physical objects and light. Budor looks at films as ecological systems, weaving together remnants and memories of cinematic history with dynamic physiological responses. Adaptation of an Instrument is an evolving organism, rethinking the nature of the cinematic object and imagining a future condition in which biological and technological entities become interdependent.