Growing up in Fort Worth, despite its renowned museums, the relatively small town felt confining, constraining, constricting. Allured by the infinite and unknowable possibilities that the world outside of my hometown (and even Texas) held, I always felt compelled to move away. Of course, that impulse and reality didn’t align, but the draw of experiencing new and different places has fueled many travels over the years. When she was younger, my oldest daughter, Julia, once said, “My favorite thing to do is travel; my favorite place to be is home,” and that sentiment encapsulates much of the way I have built my life, and, by proximity, my children’s lives.
New York City, 2002
At 16, as soon as I got my license and car, I began to sneak away on adventures — sometimes driving out of the city instead of driving to school on a weekday. Those early trips were limited to places like Waco, Austin, or small towns just beyond the Texas/Oklahoma border. In college, I ventured further, first to Marfa and eventually made my first trek to New York City, in a car with my then-boyfriend. Our relationship did not survive the week-long road trip, but my infatuation with the city has lasted more than two decades.
Julia subway reflection, New York City, 2012
Over the years, I’ve revisited New York numerous times with various people, and occasionally on my own. It seems that every few years I’m pulled back, as if my body, my being, is searching for something that can only be found there. Lately, I’ve been investigating the idea of “the city,” reading Georg Simmel, Iris Marion Young, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Michael Phillips, Walter Benjamin, and others. One big idea from these readings is that the city, as compared to a small town, is diverse (in all sensibilities) and because of that offers more opportunities for encountering difference, which in turn exposes people to new ideas. And, while I know this is true — some things can only be derived in a particular place and time — there is also an equal and opposite resistance to the city, which is perhaps a part of the reason why I have remained in Texas.
I could never imagine spending sustained time in New York because it is sensorially claustrophobic. I would miss the expanse of the Texas sky and the quiet night sounds of my neighborhood — having a sense of emptiness, or rather openness to relax into. By contrast, New York is filled with sights, sounds, and smells. Earlier this month, my daughter and I went back to the city for a short weekend trip.
Arriving at the airport, we grabbed our bags and took an hour-long transit ride to our hotel. We packed into the shuttle, pressed against other passengers, and made our way to the subway station. We rushed down the stairs as part of an amorphous crowd and the unmistakable scent of urine rose in the air. Beyond the scent and the visuals, our subway commute was filled with the sounds of buskers, irate riders demanding that people leave a pathway, subway trains coming to a screeching halt, and the garbled voice of the subway operator making indecipherable announcements. Emerging from the subway station opened opportunities for even more sensory experiences — towering buildings, car-filled streets, sidewalks brimming with vendors, and an ever-present, constantly flowing crowd of people.
To be clear, I am both delighted and overwhelmed by these things, which is why spaces like Dream House are so necessary.
Exterior of the “Dream House” at 275 Church Street in New York City
If you are unfamiliar with Dream House, you might walk right past it on Church Street in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. The sound and light installation created by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela is in an unassuming apartment building. When you arrive you ring the buzzer for the third floor and wait for the door to unlock. After climbing the staircase and paying the entry fee, you remove your shoes and enter the space.
Stairwell to the “Dream House”
Opening the door, you step into a hallway, illuminated by Zazeela’s blue and pink neon sign attached to the ceiling with the words “Dream House” repeated four times, and you are immediately engulfed in sound. To the left is the main room, which, throughout my multiple visits over the years, has only changed slightly to incorporate Jung Hee Choi’s Light Point Drawings Nos. 27, 28, 29, and 30 (2017). The room is lit with red and blue lights casting a magenta tone (designed by Zazeela), four slight spiral shapes hang from the ceiling, and in each corner, there is a speaker on top of a tall pedestal. The windows are almost completely blacked out, though when standing close to the film you can see out to the streets. Several large square pillows are scattered on the carpeted floor inviting visitors to sit or lay down and get comfortable.
The sound in this room was composed by Young; the title of the piece is simultaneously descriptive and beautifully absurd:
The Base 9:7:4 Symmetry in Prime Time
When Centered above and below
The Lowest Term Primes in The Range 288 to 224 with The Addition of 279 and 261
in Which The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped above and Including 288
Consists of The Powers of 2 Multiplied by
The Primes within The Ranges of 144 to 128, 72 to 64 and 36 to 32
Which Are Symmetrical to Those Primes in Lowest Terms
in The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped below and Including 224
within The Ranges 126 to 112, 63 to 56 and 31.5 to 28
with The Addition of 119
La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Jung Hee Choi, “Dream House,” MELA Foundation, New York City, 2023. Photo by Jung Hee Choi. © La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Jung Hee Choi 2023.
My favorite way to experience the space is to walk around the room slowly, noticing the slight changes in sound relative to my position. Similarly, I often spend dedicated time laying on the floor and turning my head in different directions to note subtle shifts. Being in the space you are inundated with sound and light, but the feeling, the tone, the experience is much different than being in New York. It is a palette cleanser of sorts, a space to declutter the mind after a day, a week, a month of being inundated by sights and sounds.
After spending a sustained period of time in the main room, I revel in walking through the hallway to the secondary space. This path now acts as a tonal transition space — as you move closer to the other room, the sounds bleed together until suddenly (and it’s difficult to pinpoint when), you hear only the sounds of the second installation.
The second room, which changes from time to time, currently houses Choi’s Color (CNN/Twitch): live realization v.2. The installation includes a large mirror on the ground with burning incense above it. Projections of CNN and Twitch live feeds are cast across the room over the smoke and onto a reflective surface wall. The work speaks to the impermanence and ever-changing nature of reality.
Jung Hee Choi, “Color (CNN / Twitch): live realization v. 2,” 2013, 2023, mixed media: incense, CNN/Twitch live streams, video projectors, wood, acrylic sheets, colored gel. “Dream House,” MELA Foundation, New York, 2023. Photo by Jung Hee Choi. © Jung Hee Choi 2023.
After just one day in the city, I found much relief inside Dream House. I felt my anxieties ease and my mind clear. Julia was underwhelmed by the experience, which may be partially my fault both for setting high expectations and for exposing her to other immersive spaces like Meow Wolf.
Young and Zazeela opened Dream House in their apartment in 1993, though they conceived of the installation in the 1960s and staged several versions of it in various locations. Dia presented one version at 6 Harrison Street in New York City from 1979 to 1985 and another version titled Dia 15 VI 13 545 West 22 Street Dream House in 2015. Since the 1960s the concept of immersive art experiences has expanded to include Meow Wolf, which bills itself as an arts and entertainment company; virtual and augmented realities like Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s CARNE y ARENA, and “immersive experiences” that bring to life works by artists with a mass appeal, such as Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo. While Dream House is clearly connected to these types of spaces, in some ways, it also stands in opposition to them. It is a quietly immersive space that engulfs you while providing opportunities to breath, soften, and reconnect with the reverberations of the universe.
*Photography and documentation of Dream House is prohibited, though you can find rogue images online. Keeping with the spirit of the space, I’ve only included approved photos.
