# Bigger Dreams Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/experiments/bigger-dreams Type: experiment Artist: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) Year: 2024 Medium: Single-Channel Moving Image Context: Single-Channel Moving Image ## Summary Bigger Dreams is a 2024 single-channel moving image by Jeanyoon Choi that critiques the consumerist notion of the Dream as an endlessly reproducible commodity. Referring to Jeff Koons's Balloon Dog and a 2023 incident in which a visitor broke one, it iterates a 45-second Cinema4D animation of balloon letters spelling 'DREAM' more than fifty times within about two and a half minutes. Each loop accelerates, and from the tenth iteration clips are overlaid into a chaotic collage. The text describes three degrees of immersiveness and pairs the visuals with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance. ## 요약 (Korean) 최정윤의 『Bigger Dreams』(2024)는 'DREAM' 글자 풍선이 부풀어 오르는 애니메이션을 가속·중첩해 혼돈의 콜라주로 만드는 단채널 영상으로, 소비주의적 꿈의 취약함을 비판합니다. ## Concepts defined - **Three degrees of immersiveness**: In Bigger Dreams, immersion arises first from the tension between inflation and the fragile balloon, second from the shortening rhythm of accelerating loops, and third from the unexpected chaos of overlaid clips. ## Questions this answers ### What is Bigger Dreams by Jeanyoon Choi? Bigger Dreams (2024) is a single-channel moving image that loops an animation of inflating 'DREAM' balloon letters at accelerating speed until the clips overlap into a chaotic collage, critiquing the fragility of consumerist dreams. ### How does Bigger Dreams relate to Jeff Koons's Balloon Dog? Jeanyoon Choi reads the shiny, inflated Balloon Dog as an image of the consumerist Dream and cites a 2023 incident in which a visitor broke one, showing how quickly such a Dream can shatter. ### Why does Bigger Dreams use Pomp and Circumstance? Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance is often played at graduations and other celebrations of an inflated Dream; syncing it with the accelerating visuals amplifies the chaos and dismantles that association. Topics: moving image, consumerism, acceleration, repetition, immersiveness, dream References: [Jeff Koons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Koons), [Balloon Dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_Dog), [Edward Elgar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Elgar), [Pomp and Circumstance Marches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomp_and_Circumstance_Marches), [Cinema 4D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_4D), [The Guardian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian) ## Description "Bigger Dreams" is a single-channel moving image artwork that critiques the fragility and unsustainable nature of consumeristic dreams through a series of accelerated and overlapping animations of inflating balloon letters spelling "DREAM," culminating in chaotic and distorted visual collages. Dream occupies a special position within the contemporary consumeristic society. It is not an exaggeration to mention it as one of the most reproducible resources of capitalism. As a widely consumed commodity throughout different industries, including but not limited to Education, Beauty and Luxury, Advertising, and even the Real Estate, Dream offers modern citizens an ultimate reason to work, save, and consume. Whether it will be a Dream Job, Dream School, Dream Car, Dream Watch, Dream House, or even a Dream Partner, the sacred scarcity of Dreams is used for the undoubtable justification of an endless reproduction of the materialistic goal. Thus, the Dream is an existential form to fulfill our infinite desire, endlessly reproducible and generable to sustain consumeristic growth. Jeff Koons’ series of inflated sculptures from the Celebration series - most notably the Balloon Dog - perfectly reflects the shiny optimism behind the Dream. Its reflective shiny flesh acts as the sculpted Dream itself formatically, which anybody might fall in love with, almost immediately, if not involuntarily [1]. The unprecedentedly inflated price of the sculpture even inflates the size of the Dream behind it. It perfectly simulates the undoubtable beauty of the materialistic culture, and thus it can be considered as one of the most successful products that the consumeristic society has ever created. Like the reflective and inflated shape of Koons’ Balloon Dog, we are involuntarily forced to sugarcoat and inflate our Dreams. These dreams, although nominally set by ourselves, do not implicitly originate from our genuine interests or wills, but rather explicitly originate from external social forces, mostly in the form of objective materials. Thus we are nudged by society to Dream. We are nudged to desire a Dream. Once we accomplish a Dream, we are nudged to Dream for another, perhaps a Bigger Dream. This endless cycle accelerates loop after loop, both in time and scale. Failure is not an option here. There is no such thing as a scattered Dream within this scenario. In 2023, an art fair visitor accidentally broke one of the Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dogs [2]. Dream, which seemed so eternal and unbreakable, shattered down immediately and helplessly as soon as the visitor bumped into the pedestal. It only took a few seconds for the Dream to be destroyed. “Bigger Dreams” is a Single-Channel Moving Image Artwork highlighting and criticising the paradoxical fragiliness of the consumeristic notation of a Dream. By employing the method of acceleration and multiplicity, this artwork gradually distorts and destroys the shiny vision behind the dream. It is constructed as an iteration of over fifty loops of an identical Cinema4D-based Balloon Animation Clip. Although the original animation lasts for 45 seconds, it only takes two and a half minutes for the whole fifty iterations to be completed. A single animation clip consists of balloon-shaped letters spelled ‘D-R-E-A-M’ inflating, placed in front of a Hollywood-like Green Screen set. Initially starting from the black voidness, green lighting flashing the whole scene gradually intensifies, highlighting the superficialness of the Dream. Once the lighting finishes, the letter balloon starts to inflate. The earlier stage of inflation seems obvious and intuitive, raising no disputation. However, as the inflation intensifies, and the balloon expands unsustainably, viewers start to dispute the validity of the Dream expanding forever, perhaps even expecting it to explode. Here, viewers confront the first degree of immersiveness - an immersiveness induced by the tension between the existing force of inflation and the fragile state of the balloon. Contrary to their belief, the Dream does not explode, and the single animation clip ends abruptly. This sudden end is followed by five seconds of voidness, even confusing viewers. However, after this brief pause, the clip resumes in a second loop, identical to the first but played at an accelerating speed. Tension arises again, followed by the unexpected end of the clip. Then the third loop is followed, then the fourth, then the fifth, and so on, all presented at an accelerating speed. The cycle time of each loop decreases, from 45 seconds initially to a single second eventually. Within this accelerating loop, viewers confront the second degree of immersiveness - an immersiveness induced by the shortening rhythm, raising expectations towards proceeding events and the unpredictable future of the Dream. Starting from the tenth iteration, the clips no longer appear in a temporal sequence, i.e., one after the other. Rather, new clips are overlaid on top of existing ones. At first, viewers are confronted with a strange circular structure ascending from the top of the screen, which they later identify as a vertically inverted clip overlaid. Shortly after this identification, another clip appears on top, this time upright. Then the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, and so on, presented at an accelerating speed, thus creating a chaotic collage. Within this collage, viewers confront the third degree of immersiveness - an immersiveness induced by the unexpected chaos and disorder. This series of accelerated and multiplied collages of Dreams presents the invalidity of the traditional consumeristic notion of the materialistic Dream. It objects with the static shiny inflated portrayal of the Dream, presenting instead a dynamic, uncanny, and deflated mixture. Perhaps the true essence of the Dream, emerging not from external pressures but from an internal mindset, is found in the later chaotic scenes rather than in an earlier scene showing an inflated balloon. Perhaps our true Dreams reside in a nonlinear, chaotic realm, not as a clear linear materialistic goal, contrary to the common belief and the straightforward narratives promoted by consumerist slogans. "Bigger Dreams" features Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" as its background music, a piece frequently played at celebratory events like graduation ceremonies that often promote the concept of an ambitiously inflated Dream. The use of this classical tune synced with the accelerating visuals, amplifies the work’s chaotic nature and attempts to dismantle the simulacrum associated with the song's symbolic connection to the Dream. References Salmon, Felix. "Jeff Koons: a master innovator turning money into art." The Guardian (2014). Giuffrida, Angela. “Art fair visitor breaks $42,000 Jeff Koons balloon dog sculpture.” The Guardian (2023). ## Links - [Watch video](https://www.youtube.com/embed/hMZfX91Hu8E?si=82owSOYY6Y1-lX29) ## Images - https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/bigger-dreams/1.webp — Bigger Dreams (2024), documentation image 1. - https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/bigger-dreams/2.webp — Bigger Dreams (2024), documentation image 2. - https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/bigger-dreams/3.webp — Bigger Dreams (2024), documentation image 3. - https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/bigger-dreams/4.webp — Bigger Dreams (2024), documentation image 4. - https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/bigger-dreams/5.webp — Bigger Dreams (2024), documentation image 5. - https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/bigger-dreams/6.webp — Bigger Dreams (2024), documentation image 6. - https://jeanyoon.ch/experiments/bigger-dreams/7.webp — Bigger Dreams (2024), documentation image 7. --- Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.