Sleeping Beauty Conscience
by Lydia Venieri


(2002, 17 minutes) The story takes place in a sculpture installation created by Lydia Venieri. The music is improvised from children's toys and the voices generated with an Apple mac's synthesizer. It was filmed with a Canon ZR10 and edited with Apple's iMovie.
Yuri, a mad scientist, attempts to awaken the human conscience. He imagines a Sleeping Beauty Conscience imprisoned at the deepest level of Universal Sleep. He decides to force people into deep hibernation and then steal their dreams.
He cultivates mythological beings: Humans cross-bred with everlasting plants. His dream compressor brings dreams from the immaterial world into our dimension.
In Yuri's Paradise the little boy and the little girl are captives. Esmet, his Caucasian assistant, wanders around and Maria Callas appears sometimes through the dream compressor.
Yuri is a contemporary anti-hero: His puritanical ideas spring form the fear of degeneration. As in an ancient tragedy the heros address the public. Speaking their thoughts and developing the philosophy of their acts.
While they awaiting The End, the King Monkey appears announcing that Yuri has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Like in a modern commedia dell'Arte the End is postponed.
In an Epilogue Yuri develops his theory that fire is not an element.

http://www.venieri.com/SleepingBeautyConscience/