OTHER
SANDS
UCSC Digital Arts and New Media Lab, 2021
“Other Sands” is a cross-media adaptation of ETA Hoffman’s ‘Der Sandmann’ that takes Nathanael’s spyglass as its launching point. Through a ritual of attempted transference, the performance works to dislocate memories, desires, and perhaps even the self from the technologies of world-building and surveillance that are often central to their construction.
Written, directed, and performed by Rory Willats
Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream. Make him the cutest that I've ever seen. Give him two lips like roses and clover, and tell him that his lonesome night are over.
Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream. Make him the cutest that I've ever seen. Give him two lips like roses and clover, and tell him that his lonesome night are over.
“As a child, I was told never to be upset when someone wakes you from a dream. For although that moment may be violent and disorienting, it would have happened anyway—and at that precise instant. If that person didn’t wake you, your dreams would have.
Obviously that’s not true, and I don’t remember who it was that told it to me—or why. But, for twenty years, as hard as I’ve tried (and whoever that person was) I’ve never been able to prove them wrong.”
