Machine of Dreams and Nightmares

VR, 2024
Miri Segal and Nir Harel

Machine of Dreams and Nightmares (Installation detail) Israel Museum, jerusalem, 2024

About the work

The Machine of Dreams and Nightmares is a VR-based interactive art piece that immerses the viewer in a dream-like state, observing multiple events unfolding simultaneously. The viewer, inadvertently becoming part of these events, searches for ways to move between and within them. For this work, a new image transmission technology was invented, enabling a vision-guided interactive experience.

In this work, a new medium has been created—a psychoactive one. This new medium allows an encounter with the Real (political horror) in a way that is free from ideological conditioning and is instead determined by the psyche of the viewer. Every individual experiences it differently, and the experience is not predetermined but rather shaped by each viewer’s inner response to themselves and the world.

The machine weaves together vivid, concrete imagery with ethereal, abstract scenes, evoking the fragmented and surreal nature of dreams. At moments, nightmarish images from the past year appear; at others, you find yourself drifting through dark forests, exploring abstract architectonic forms, or wandering desolate landscapes. This multilayered experience aims to evoke a complex interplay of terror, wonder, and introspection, transforming the voyage into a platform for exploring the psyche.

An important inspiration for this work was Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville’s Dreamachine (1959), a kinetic artwork where flickering light created retinal imagery, or visual hallucinations, for viewers with closed eyes. The Machine of Dreams and Nightmares expands these ideas into the digital and interactive realm in order to explore the nightmare state. At some moments, viewers who are asked to shut their eyes can catch a glimpse of the image that appears behind their closed eyelids.

At its core, the piece seeks to confront the uncontrollable dread born of reality in this region—Israel, the territories, and, Gaza profound devastation—over the past 16 months, since october 7th. Amidst the darkness, it offers a counterpoint: an abstract, meditative space that serves as a temporary refuge. This duality—a collision of nightmare and sanctuary—invites viewers to traverse the liminal spaces between fear and reflection, reality and imagination

About BatLab

BatLab (Bezalel Art & Technology Lab) was a research platform founded by Miri Segal and Nir Harel at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Active from 2020–2022, the lab fostered experimental collaborations between artists, researchers, and technologists, focusing on teaching artists to work with AI and exploring links between neuroscience and deep neural networks.
The Machine of Dreams and Nightmares emerged from this context as a culmination of speculative research and psychophysical inquiry.

Miri Segal (Ph.D)

(1965, Haifa) Media Artist and Senior Lecturer at Bezalel and Hamidrasha art schools.  Previously  she served as Head of the Graduate Studies Program, at Hamidrasha art school, and also as a Fellow Researcher at the ARL (Advanced Reality Lab) at the Herzliya IDC, Segal has PhD in Mathematics. Segal won the Gottesdiener Prize for Israeli art, The Minister of Science and Culture prize, the Dizengoff Award and the Pundik Prize among other prizes. Her works have been exhibited in many solo exhibitions including at  PS1\Moma in New York, Lisson Gallery  in London, Kamel Mennour Gallery in Paris, Tel Aviv Museum, Herzliya Museum, Dvir  Gallery, and more. Segal has developed several projects that occur on the seam between science, technology and art. Selected Works

Nir Harel

(1978, Tel Aviv) is an artist, programmer, and art and media educator.  Harel is a graduate of the MFA program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design,  where he also received his BFA, His work has been showcased in solo shows and  group exhibitions at venues such as Bruch & Dallas, Cologne, KIT, Dusseldorf,  MoBY – Museums of Bat Yam and the Tel Aviv Museum, and is the recipient of the MoBY Yaacov Epstein sculpture award.

Harel is a member of “Tohu” magazine editorial, Harel has extensive experience in  developing web sites and image processing based projects.  nirharel.net

Still from VR
Still from VR

Currently on display as part of Lucid Dreams, Israel Museum, curator Adina Kamian

Information & Credits

For more information
Batlab.art@gmail.com