Sira-Zoé Schmid
“[Humans] are just an algorithm designed to survive at all costs, sophisticated enough to think they’re calling the shots, to think they’re in control, but they’re really just… - Passengers.” (Westworld, 2016)
Westworld describes a futuristic science fiction world. Visitors log into this fictional non-reality to live out their deepest fantasies as temporary passengers. Similar to a dream, this artificial scenery, detached from real time and space, creates a freedom to act in a transcendent state of consciousness, indefinable physical presence, a freedom that often causes disturbance. This metaphor contains a concise parallel to often dystopian atmospheres, of strange diffuse elements in dreams.
Based on the quote from the Westworld series, the artist Sira-Zoé Schmid has chosen bizarre passages from her 2010 dream diary and translated them as a basic atmospheric element into a scene-like media installation. Through looped fragments of a party scenery, combined with planar, transparent objects, the artist grants the “passenger” an intimate insight into her dreamed fantasies.