Dream the Combine: T R A C K I N G, A Polyrhythm of Winter
January 28 - March 20, 2021
T R A C K I N G by award-winning architecture/art duo Dream the Combine is an intimate portrait of winter for The Great Northern. Consisting of a series of five movement prompts and responses distributed via text message, the artwork will be an archive of our collective remembrances of winter.
Project participants will explore the ways in which we are all bodies of water in relation to each other by receiving a text message that offers an intention for the day. People are then invited to share their response to the day’s message in the form of audio, video, and/or image files sent as a reply within 24 hours. Tracks and visuals received will later be combined to create a polyrhythmic sonic image of this time and place. T R A C K I N G encourages you to bring your awareness to the small moments of winter that cohere all of us (body, environment, cosmos) in an interrelated system. The movement prompts are simple, often tapping into our long-term procedural memories. They can be done wherever you find yourself, highlighting that we can all experience something unexpected right where we are.
The final output of the project will be a series of audio tracks made in collaboration with artist Isaac Gale and made available during the vernal equinox on March 20, 2021. This is when our side of the earth tilts back towards the sun and water moves toward its eventual thaw.
To get started, text "Tracking" to 41242. Please use a cellular phone with photo and audio recording capability that you have access to for the entirety of the festival. Communication with the artists regarding this project will occur entirely via text message.
If you have friends or family who also want to participate, feel free to share these instructions widely.
Once you’ve confirmed your participation, you’ll receive movement prompts via text and are invited to respond in the form of audio, video, and/or image files within 24 hours. Responses collected will later be combined to create a polyrhythmic sonic image of this time and place released March 20.
Prompt days:
January 28
January 30
February 2
February 4
February 7
We look forward to creating this intimate portrait of winter with you as part of The Great Northern.
About Dream the Combine
Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers are licensed architects, artists, and principals of Dream The Combine, based in Minneapolis, MN. They have produced numerous site-specific installations in the U.S. and Canada that explore metaphor, perceptual uncertainties, and the boundary between real and illusory space. They are winners of the 2018 Young Architects Program at MoMA PS1 for their installation Hide & Seek, and were recently named winners of the 2020-2021 J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Jennifer and Tom are both graduates of the Yale School of Architecture.
Dream The Combine’s work conflates what is real with what is imagined to create perceptual uncertainties that cast doubt on our “known” understanding of the world. They are images deconstructed sectionally and, while made of industrial materials, have the lightness of drawing. Through techniques such as doubling (mirrors), juxtaposition (collage), overlay (projection), or mimicry (casting), their work conveys a multitude of viewpoints at a time, and inserts an oscillation into the figure-ground dialectic at the basis of metaphor.
Dream the Combine has exhibited at MoMA and MoMA PS1 in New York, NY, and in Seattle WA, East Haddam CT, Vancouver BC, Rome Italy, Minneapolis MN and St. Paul MN. Their work has been published widely, including Metropolis Magazine, Architect Magazine, Log, Architectural Record, The Architects Newspaper, and Dezeen. They are currently at work on upcoming installations in Minneapolis MN, Cincinnati OH, Wilkinsburg PA, and Columbus IN.
In addition to Dream The Combine, Jennifer is Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture, and Tom is co-owner of Jacobsson Carruthers, a metal fabrication studio in Minneapolis, MN.
