Shezad Dawood: 'New Dream Machine Project' Parasolstice ' 'Winter Light 2012'

About

Shezad Dawood: New Dream Machine Project, 2011. Light sculpture, brushed steel, fluorescent lights and electronic motor, 300 x 250 cm diameter, Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Art Dubai, 2011. Courtesy of the artist and the Abraaj Capital Art Prize. Photography: Tom Brown.

On 4 December 2012, Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art will launch the second work in its Parasolstice ' Winter Light series. For this ongoing project Parasol unit invites a different artist each year to create a work that explores the phenomenon of light. The work is exhibited on the foundation's outdoor space throughout the winter months. In 2012, British artist Shezad Dawood will exhibit his immersive, sculptural light piece the New Dream Machine Project, and will create the new film, New Dream Machine Project II, commissioned to accompany this sensory work.
The 'New Dream Machine Project' is part of an evolving body of work that explores the relationship between Beat culture and Middle-Eastern artistic traditions, and their legacy today. Dawood's New Dream Machine Project, a 3-metre-tall spinning steel sculpture, is a reworking of the original Dream Machine created in 1959 by artist Brion Gysin and scientist Ian Sommerville. Best experienced close-up with eyes closed, participants feel an increasingly bright and complex pattern of colour as the pierced steel cylinder spins around tubes of variously coloured light. As the swirling pattern of shapes speeds up, the viewer feels surrounded by colour. The revolutions emit light at a frequency that corresponds to the alpha waves and electrical oscillations normally present in the human brain in a relaxed state, causing visual stimuli that can become a hypnotic experience. Dawood's New Dream Machine Project, an interactive piece with an imposing physical presence, draws attention to how science, art and mysticism have come together, and the surprising technological innovations that can result.

To enhance and complete the effects of the New Dream Machine Project, Shezad Dawood will stage a live improvised performance event that will form the basis of his new film New Dream Machine Project II. Commissioned by Parasol unit for Parasolstice 2012, New Dream Machine Project II is intended to move the project away from its original location (Tangiers, where the first film was staged), and is the second instalment of what is to be a trilogy of films, each mimetically documenting a unique improvised musical performance. Enacting new juxtapositions and interventions through their response to the New Dream Machine Project light sculpture, New Dream Machine Project II will incorporate the experimental music of international duo Praed.

About the performers: Formed in 2006 by Swiss musician Paed Conca and Lebanese artist/musician Raed Yassin, the Praed duo experiments with a complex and vast terrain of sonic/musical influences and geographies. Collaborating with Praed will be the Paris-based soprano and sax player Stephane Rives and electric guitar player Sharif Sehnaoui.

Shezad Dawood, born 1974 in London, United Kingdom, trained at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art before undertaking a PhD at Leeds Metropolitan University. One of the winners of the 2011 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Dawood's work has been exhibited internationally, including in Altermodern, 2009, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, at Tate Britain, the 53rd Venice Biennale, 2009, and the Busan Biennale, 2010. Recent projects include a solo touring exhibition that opened at Modern Art Oxford in April 2012. Shezad has been nominated for the Jarman Award 2012. He currently lives and works in London, where he is Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow in Experimental Media at the University of Westminster.
The New Dream Machine Project was commissioned by the Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2011.
Parasolstice is generously supported by Arts Council England.

VISITOR INFORMATION
Admission to all Parasol unit exhibitions is free
Gallery opening hours:
Monday by prior arrangement. Tuesday ' Saturday, 10 a.m. ' 6 p.m. Sunday, 12 ' 5 p.m.
Christmas closure: 22 December 2012 ' 1 January 2013 (inclusive)

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Note to editors
Founded in December 2004, Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art is a registered educational and a non-profit institution that operates purely for public benefit. Every year the foundation organises four challenging and thought-provoking exhibitions of works by international contemporary artists working in various media, holds artistic projects and gives awards and exhibition possibility to graduating student from a UK art school. The foundation also engages with the public and the neighbouring community through a full programme of educational events. In its genuine mission to serve the public, the foundation does not bear the founder's name and its exhibitions do not derive from any particular private collections. Admission to all exhibitions at Parasol unit is free of charge. Thanks to this innovative model between private funding and public support one of London's most vibrant contemporary art spaces has come to exist and thrives.

For more information, please contact Anna Lehmbruck on 020 7490 7373, at anna@parasol-unit.org, or go to www.parasol-unit.org.

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