The art film «Hypno 29» was screened during the Blue Nights 2019 festival at the Sculpture Garden and was later added to the Foundation’s collection
Oneiromancy is the prophecy of the future through the interpretation of dreams. It is also known as dream divination. The ancient Greeks believed that dreams foretell the future. That is why there was a special category of seers to explain them. They also used dreams for therapeutic purposes. During incubation in a sleep temple such as the Asclepeion at Epidaurus, the patient would receive a revelatory dream showing the course of treatment that should be followed. One of the most important temples of a so called oneiromanteion was at Taenarus, which was also a temple of necromancy (the gates of Hades were believed to be there) at the southernmost tip of mainland Greece in the Peloponnese, where the Temple of Poseidon Asphaleus (later the Chapel of Asomatos) was built. This is the setting of James Lane’s work Oneiromantio (Hypno 29), which shows the artist walking around this forgotten sacred site. The work is part of a broader series exploring oneiromancy in ancient times, a kind of road movie-exploration of the ancient oracles but also of modern buildings such as houses, churches and hospitals.
