The installation An Impure Limbic Screenplay was one result of an ongoing research about Dreams, the dynamics of their creation perfomed by our brain and their narrative structure.

 

Modern neurology has proved that during dreams we can observe the "activation of a vast area of the limbic forebrain which is known to motivate behaviour in humans; activation of the limbic areas controlling emotions; activation of multimodal 'association' areas of the brain" (Hobson, 2005). Meanwhile, other areas of the brain, strictly related to our rational mind, like the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex are observed to be deficient or inactive, which implies a number of repercussions such as "diminished self-awareness, diminished reality testing and rationalisation, poor memory, defective logic, and inability to maintain directed thoughts" (Hobson, 2005).

 

One of the main topics of the research is the extent to which it can be considered possible to capture the material that our subconsciuous brain produces during dreams in the REM phase of our sleep, without however making it too "polluted", by trying to minimise the intervention of the rational areas of our brain, which are wired to put reins and censorship on everything produced by the creative and emotional Limbic System.

 

An Impure Limbic Screenplay is an uncut collection of audio recordings of the artist's voice during the ephemeral "wake/sleep" state which occurs just after waking up from dreams. The material recorded was subsequently converted into a screenplay, presented to the viewer on a stool nailed to the wall, five feet from the ground.

 

A failure hence emerges: the more the attempts to capture the dream (first by recording it, which implies being at least partly awake, then trying to rationalise it into a screenplay, which has an even more rigourous structure) the more impure the dream inevitably becomes.