The Journey of Fantasy and Thought:
Day Dreams and Moments of Transition

To daydream is one strategy desire uses to achieve fulfillment. In his work In der Nacht... Philipp Gasser (b. 1958 in Chur, currently living in Basel) orchestrates a lounge-like installation which can be interpreted as a daydream interface. lying on the back and gazing up towards a computer-animated sky and flooded by artificially created forest sounds, the recipient soon has the feeling that he (or she) is lying on nature's psychotherapy couch. The fact that all is fake makes it easier for us to let our thoughts float, a cloud no longer needs to be real in the sense of a potential bearer of rain and harbinger of dropping temperatures, but can be seen merely as an aesthetically pleasing shape. Our thoughts drift in whatever direction, light and freed form any visual connotations to real life. Unlike opium-heavy dreams during the night, daydreams have a fanciful light and drifting nature. " Our consciousness soars up into the blue and comes back down to Earth as it chooses. As relaxed as dreamer may be, he is not carried away and overpowered by his images; they are not sufficiently independent to do so," says Bloch in a comparison of night- and daydreams, adding, "For the talented hashish dreamer, the world is transformed into a palette of wish and desire.

Sabine Schaschl
"Strategies of desire"
catalogue to the exhibition
"Strategies of Desire" 2004,
Kunsthaus Baselland Muttenz