thesis introduction

So: it's time to introduce my thesis.  In a nutshell, I am presenting a lighting exploration of Strindberg's A dream play, which is one of my favorite plays of all time and full of really exciting imagery and craziness.  While the actual thesis will be presented in mid-April, I am workshopping some ideas with audience at the end of this month (scary thought!) in several venues, which is really great since I am trying to create narrative/experience/emotion through only light (no scenery, costumes, props, actors or sound).  In Strindberg's story, a girl named Agnes comes down to Earth to discover what being human is like.  She journeys through various senarios, all in a dream-like fashion: time and place are extremely fluid and people come and go as they are necessary.  I am currently in the process of finding the specific narrative within the material that I want to tell. 

That being said, I have started really looking into how we visualize our dreams: what do you SEE when you dream? I have begun to write down my own dreams in the morning, hoping to have a better understanding of how we assign relationships and importance visually in our dreams.  I've also been asking anyone and everyone to tell me a little bit about what they see when they dream.  If you are interested in contributing to my non-visual visual research (hehe!), then please consider completing this survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/59WMBMF

I have also begun to explore other people's visual representations of dreams and dream-like states.  In particular, my advisor suggested that I go back and watch Fantasia and the like.  (I've been looking at Disney, Miyazaki, Kurosawa, Dali.....anymore thoughts?)  Here are some highlights from that process so far: 

Seem interesting?  I sure think so!  More to come, but if you are in Boston and interested in coming to see a few experiments, please let me know!  I am super excited about this project and it's ability to  challenge me to think about light in a different way.