Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is known for having identified the potential of dreams to communicate between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. It is not insignificant that he was interested in the method of Giovanni Morelli, a nineteenth-century Italian art critic. Centred around the study of details rather than the general impression of an artwork, Morelli\u2019s analytical method was \u201caccustomed to divine secret and concealed things from despised and unnoticed features, from the rubbish-heap, as it were, of our observations,\u201d2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - Sigmund Freud, \u201cThe Moses of Michelangelo,\u201d in Writings on Art and Literature <\/em>(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 134.<\/span> according to Freud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In On Dreams<\/em> (1914),3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - Sigmund Freud, On Dreams<\/em>, trans. M. D. Eder (New York: Rebman Company, 1914), 10, 15\u200a\u201320, 48<\/span> Freud discusses, among other things, the meaning revealed by the presence of spinach in one of his dreams. He emphasizes that the \u201cmanifest content<\/em>\u201d conceals a \u201clatent content<\/em>\u201d: what matters for the unconscious mind is the symbolic value of the object and not the value we give it in reality. In dreams, any real or fictional object or person can appear because the implied emotional charge is what resonates (reasons). More importantly, by drawing attention to a trivial element, Freud aligns himself with Morelli\u2019s method. Because it is supposed to be less striking, the unconscious and insignificant detail is less controlled, which makes it all the more revealing. Dreams therefore allow us to better understand ourselves by providing access to an uninhibited expression of ourselves. Yet examining this rawer interiority can be off-putting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pouliot\u2019s work on dreams began during a residency at Atelier Circulaire, in Montr\u00e9al. On site, he familiarized himself with etching, an engraving technique that involves immersing a metal plate into an acid bath to create a master plate. The reaction of the acid, which \u201cbites\u201d into the metal, gave him the poetic idea of \u201cbiting the night.\u201d At night, all barriers come down, and dreams consume and digest what the mind has experienced throughout the day. By occasionally arousing disturbing emotions and always striking a chord, a dream can seem like an aggression at times. \u201cBiting the night\u201d suggests that we can in turn take hold of the dream and feed on it to examine our relationship with the world, play an active role in it, and participate in its continual creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pouliot began by writing brief summaries of his dreams with a paintbrush, using an imprecise script that gave them an indeterminate character. He then made stencils that allowed him to etch his summaries onto steel plates. These plates act both as archives and master plates. Through this process, his dreams are radically reduced. Stripped of any nuance, they are condensed into a vague and impersonal description of a situation: \u201c23. We say goodbye by sending a blurry selfie to someone else.\u201d Or the absurdity of a situation is emphasized by the economy of the text: \u201c10. A film by Xavier Dolan tells the story of a young single mother, played by \u00c9velyne Brochu. It promises a slow descent into the hell of her misery. The credits mention the roles Zombie 1 and Zombie 2.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By synthesizing his dreams to an extreme, Pouliot highlights their unintelligible and absurd manner, which may be funny\u200a\u2014\u200aa humour that perhaps contributes to keeping them at a distance: \u201c19. I break a work by Amanda Pr\u00e9val. I have to pay a dozen doughnuts in damages.\u201d Through this synthesis, he also removes details that would no doubt offer clues. Nevertheless, even in their laconic form, these accounts seem full of meaning. At the very least, they arouse an emotion and sometimes unease. It may be tempting to let ourselves be distracted by their absurdity or humour precisely because they hit a nerve. As Morelli and Freud suggest, the close association between the trivial and the serious works both ways: when we pay attention to it, a trivial detail is an indicator and not a disqualification of a statement. However, unlike Freud who analyzed his spinach, Pouliot does not attempt to explain the significance of the \u201cdozen doughnuts.\u201d Instead, he examines the ambivalence between the curiosity that dreams arouse and the fear of getting too close to what they stir in us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his art practice, Pouliot carries out projects over extended periods of time. Throughout this process, objects may be deconstructed and reassembled to create something new. In this case, the series of dreams is improved with each iteration, as he manipulates and reuses objects, adding new dimensions as well as material or linguistic translations. This position is reminiscent of how dreams function. Nothing is discarded, and damaged elements, if they exist, are reused. Various dimensions are thus integrated over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The steel plates were first exhibited under the provisional title of J\u2019ai r\u00eav\u00e9 (d\u2019une archive)<\/em> (2020\u200a\u201321). The plates, etched in a legible direction, were installed on the floor. The etchings made from them were hung on the wall, above the corresponding master plate. At eye level, the text therefore appeared backwards. As the etching and master plate mirrored each other, the project questioned the meaning and purpose of the work. Is the etching an object in itself or an overall process? Does deciphering the text mean that we understand something in the work, especially when what is written seems absurd? Is it necessary to find a rational and explicit meaning in the work? Does experiencing the work emotionally, which is precisely the function of dreams, help to bring out another meaning\u200a\u2014\u200aone that may be less intelligible or reassuring but is just as real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n By presenting the plates and etchings together, the arrangement in the space underscores both the inversion and connection between the two objects. The spatial arrangement evokes the dualities of dreams, their upside-down worlds, their simultaneous relationships of opposing and being connected to reality. If dreams reveal our psyche, do they not then point in the \u201cright\u201d direction? Is it not absurd to trivialize their content?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This initial experiment was followed by an actual installation presented at the Galerie de l\u2019Atelier Circulaire in June 2023. The project\u2019s final title, FO REVER<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201cfaut r\u00eaver<\/em>\u201d (or \u201cmust dream\u201d in English) and \u201cforever\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aimmediately evokes the notions of translation, discrepancy, and uncertainty that arise when we try to communicate dreams. The intention is not to create a double meaning in one language or to offer a translation, but to use two languages in a complementary manner so that they more aptly name the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The focal point of the installation, and the only light source in the darkened room, is a video projected on a screen. Texts appear on it in succession like entities emerging from the mouth of a spiralling tunnel of green clouds, and a voice narrates them against mysterious background music. The steel plates are stacked upside down in a pile on the floor, in front of the screen; visitors are invited to sit on a green foam mattress to watch the video. The stretched screen is in fact the back of a quilt, which presents etchings of all the steel plates and is visible only from outside the gallery window. The mattress is composed of foam rectangles glued together, the same number and size as the plates; it therefore has the same surface area as the quilt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n The video of moving images and scrolling text is reminiscent of a dream\u2019s progression, which rises from the depths of the unconscious to reach a certain level of consciousness in immobile sleepers. This new form of the project underscores analogies between the creation of scenes during REM sleep (the stage of sleep in which brain activity looks very similar to brain activity while awake) and the progression of an art practice. In the process of archiving dreams and arranging them in space, the materialities of the text follow each other and the sense of the reading is inverted. This movement evokes recurring dreams or repetitive sequences within a single dream, which perhaps aim to examine a more complex or meaningful emotion or situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the installation, materialities take turns. Initially nebulous and elusive, the dreams etched on steel plates become heavy and cumbersome. They contrast with the softness of the mattress, the lightness of the quilt, the intangibility of the video and sound. The apparatus thus expands the inversions and connections already explored in J\u2019ai r\u00eav\u00e9 (d\u2019une archive)<\/em>. The fronts and backs of the master plates, the texts, the quilt on one side that serves as a screen on the other: everything mirrors each other and comes together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Discussing the role of the frame in an art context, philosopher and art historian Michel Th\u00e9voz emphasizes that the frame is both a physical protection of the object and a semiological protection from the real world: an unbridled interior universe and a stable exterior.4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Michel Th\u00e9voz, Pathologie du cadre\u202f: quand l\u2019art brut s\u2019\u00e9clate<\/em> (Paris: Minuit, 2020), 65.<\/span> This border, which could be extended to an exhibition space or institution, leads to a relative separation between art and life. Nevertheless, such borders are porous. Art experiences stay with us once we have left the exhibition space, just like dreams and wakefulness reciprocally influence each other. Dreams and wakefulness, art and life, are states that are delineated so that they can better interact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freud analyzed dreams because the expression of the unconscious mind, which is obvious in dreams, also operates when one is awake, yet more subtly. By observing the uninhibited unconscious of dreams, he sought to better understand what happens outside of dreams. Similarly, in FO REVER<\/em>, the absurd accounts of dreams are very revealing. Their successive, material transfers and their unlimited reversals in time embody the sensory continuity between art and life, in the interiority of the artist and public alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Holding bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in visual and media arts from Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al, artist Rapha\u00eblle Groulx-Julien lives and works in Montr\u00e9al. Her work has been presented in exhibitions and fairs in Montr\u00e9al and New York.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"Alex-Pouliot_FOREVER\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/112_DO_Groulx-Julien_Alex-Pouliot_FOREVER_2023_08-scaled.jpg\")
FO REVER<\/em>, installation view, Atelier Circulaire, Montr\u00e9al, 2023.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Alex-Pouliot_mordrelanuit\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/112_DO_Groulx-Julien_Alex-Pouliot_mordrelanuit_2021_04-scaled.jpg\")
Mordre la nuit<\/em>, installation view, Atelier Circulaire, Montr\u00e9al, 2021.
Photo: alignements, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Alex-Pouliot_FoRever\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/112_DO_Groulx-Julien_Alex-Pouliot_FoRever_Capture_9-scaled.jpg\")
FO REVER<\/em>, video stills, 2023.
Photos: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Alex-Pouliot_FoRever\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/112_DO_Groulx-Julien_Alex-Pouliot_FoRever_Capture_11-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Alex-Pouliot_FoRever\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/112_DO_Groulx-Julien_Alex-Pouliot_FoRever_Capture_16-scaled.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Alex-Pouliot_FOREVER\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/112_DO_Groulx-Julien_Alex-Pouliot_FOREVER_2023_11-scaled.jpg\")
FO REVER<\/em>, installation view, Atelier Circulaire, Montr\u00e9al, 2023.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n