An immersive installation and performance project
So begins the narrative for the Seas of the Subconscious crew’s briefing, a short story distributed as a custom bound booklet to the actors involved in this immersive, interactive performance project. Written to give their characters a common back-story as a basis for their performance, it goes on to describe a fictional merchant sailing crew, their arrival in the Seas of the Subconscious, their adventures and misadventures with sea serpents, merfolk, and weather patterns of the dreamscape.
With a modest budget, I executed my vision as creative director and producer of the experience, employing a cast of ten actors, several prop makers/set designers, and one sound engineer.
The author, musician, one-time San Francisco mayoral candidate, and consummate showman known as Mr. “Chicken” John Rinaldi had proposed a collaborative, immersive show at the historic 1874 San Francisco Mint building, at 88 5th Street in SOMA. The huge greek revival structure had recently been renovated and reopened as a museum and events space. Being a longtime showman with deep connections in many of the Bay Area’s creative communities, John’s call for submissions attracted a cast of highly innovative and ambitious artists, makers, performers and creatives.
The two-night event, The All World’s Fair, was to be a gathering of cultures from parallel universes, alternate realities, other planets. Each room of the Mint would house one of these “alternate reality’ installations. This prompt fueled some amazing ideas, including an intergalactic Kafkaesque courthouse, a live-acted penny arcade, a cult dedicated to Emperor Norton, an oracle with alters to otherworldly deities, culminating in a dramatic Butoh performance by members of Bad Unkle Sista.
The Seas of the Subconscious was my contribution to the project, the idea arising from my love of tall ship sailing, nautical and maritime culture, vintage cartography, and my interest in human psychology, the subconscious mind, and dream states. This manifested as an otherworldly, aquatic dreamscape, where visitors weren’t sure if they had entered a surreal belly of a ship or an undersea grotto. Sailors would interview guests about their dreams, and use them to navigate their course; mermaids lurked in the edges of a kelp forest, and a bloom of jellyfish lamps illuminated the room, casting eerie, underwater light.
Having recently crewed aboard the Lady Washington, a historic wooden tall ship based in the Puget Sound, I was full of inspiration for tales of the Golden Age of Sailing, the classic Moby Dick, and the true account of Joshua Slocum’s first ever solo round-the-world voyage in 1894.
Inspired equally by recent explorations into Jungian theories, psychology, and the subconscious mind, research that would eventually lead to my project Journey, a wellness and mood-tracking app I cover in another case study. My intention with this project was to design an immersive experience that connected all these themes.
I began brainstorming ideas that would articulate my vision in a deeply engaging, theatrical setting. Pervasive tropes like messages in a bottle, sailors swabbing the deck, sirens wailing on the shore, the Odyssey into the underworld, dreams having real-world consequences, tales of pirate adventures, all were analyzed for their novel performance value. I wanted to see what could be derived or distilled from these symbols, if they could lend themselves to new interactive situations.
Over the course of four months, I gathered a crew of actors and builders, and explained my vision. We held rehearsals, played improv games, had character-building workshops, and brainstormed what kinds of interactions could take place in the setting.
We built props such as the jellyfish lamps, a kelp forest, portholes for the walls, rigging for the sails. Costume designers made fish tails and outfits for the merfolk, and articles were made of collected for the sailor’s outfits, including a custom captain’s coat.
Several site visits were made, culminating with load-in and build day before the event.
I distilled my ideas down to a general plot, and developed a user flow for how a typical interaction between a visitor the the space and this new environment they encounter would proceed.
The concept of an airlock for immersive events is critical. The visitor requires a space to prepare for a new type of reality that they will interact with. Being able to mentally prepare for this transformation helps with the ability for the visitor to fully engage with this new environment.
The threshold for the Seas of the Subconscious consisted of visual cues of a nautical, maritime culture, such as anchors, barrels, and portholes. It was to be assisted by hired actors portraying themselves as merfolk (mermen and mermaids), enticing visitors to enter into the watery depths. There was finally a kelp forest at the doorway, made from silky materials, dense enough so visitors could not see past it, but were required to pass through to enter fully into the room containing the rest of the Seas of the Subconscious.
Once the visitor has passed through the kelp forest at the threshold, they encounter an environment designed to be somewhat disorienting, yet familiar in a dream-like way. Jellyfish lamps hang from the ceiling, cast an eerie light around the room. Portholes and nautical maps line the walls.
An otherworldly soundtrack plays, filling the room with ambient aquatic sounds, sailors singing sea shanties, and ghostly voices. Sound engineer Collin Sullivan contributed his expertise in crafting this soundtrack, specially engineered for the acoustics of the steel-lined walls of the Mint vault we performed in.
Visual cues include nautical equipment, charts, coils of rope, sails billowing in a breeze. Piles of old books line the surfaces, bowls of horse and bovine teeth, vials and bottles of all sorts, lanterns and plates of charcuterie. Sailors, sea dogs, old salts, swabbing the deck, plotting their course, are milling about, making adjustments to sails, and engaging in call-and-response nautical commands.
It is very much like a dream: the environment resembles a ship, but is not quite a ship. Things there were familiar, but out of place. The intended effect was a surreal environment, not entirely recognizable, but not completely disorienting.
Once a visitor has gained their bearings, one of the actors might approach, and explain that their crew has been lost here in the Seas of the Subconscious – “Cast adrift for eons upon eons, so long in fact, that we have a notion of the waking world, but can’t remember if it’s a figment of our subconscious minds or if it actually exists.”
“But you, dear traveler,” the actor says, “you appear as through you can traverse between the waking worlds and subconscious worlds. Please - tell us of your dreams. We think they could help us find our way home.”
A short interview about the visitor’s dreams ensues, followed by an introduction to the dream questionnaire.
A short questionnaire is presented to the visitor, full of provocative questions about their dreams. Several different forms were printed and randomized to minimize pairs or groups receiving the same form. Sample questions included:
“You had a childhood friend. Who was it, and how did they betray you?”
“What makes you important in your dreams? And what makes you important in the waking world?”
“How do you know you are not currently dreaming?”
“Have you ever had a creepy feeling? Would you like one?”
“Please describe your dreams in five words or less.”
Often when engaging in an unfamiliar environment, people look for an activity that they already know how to engage with. In this manufactured dreamscape, the act of filling out a questionnaire provided many visitors with a sense of comfort and purpose, as well as a chance to open up about themselves in an honest and thought-provoking way. Some visitors cherished this interaction, going into lengthy detail about their dreams.
After completing a questionnaire, the dreamscape sailor actors further engaged with the visitors in front of a large wall map. The map was populated not with actual geographic locations, but with figments of the subconscious mind: The Archipelago of Phobias, the Shoals of Friendliness, the Cape of New Hope, the Islands of Lust, The Sea of Gut-Wrenching Terror, and so on — A nautical chart of the Seas of the Subconscious.
The crew would use the visitor’s dreams to triangulate their position and direction on this map, making references to the visitor’s dream questionnaire and correlating it to points on the map. Once the navigational bearings were taken, visitors were directed to the Dream Library.
Our dream librarian would accept the visitor’s dream questionnaire, roll it up and put it into a small glass bottle, cork the bottle, and file the dream away in the crew’s dream library. The dream librarian would also retrieve a previous dream from the library, and give this to the visitor, saying: “Take this dream, this message in a bottle. We can’t make it back to the waking world, but you can - so take it, and let them know we’re coming… We’re coming home.”
Our dream library also happened to double as a rum bar, for those curious enough to stick around and find out about it - but that was very much a secondary function to the filing of dreams.
Filling one of the largest rooms in the Mint building, the Seas of the Subconscious experience was a highlight for many of the fair-goers. The venue completely sold out, with over 800 attendees over the two-night run.
Because of the success of this experience, the Seas of the Subconscious act was invited to participate at other venues, and made appearances over the next several years:
After several performances from 2013 through 2016, the Seas of the Subconscious project is currently on hiatus.
Many of the actors, prop builders, and stylists who were involved are still in touch. There has been some recent chatter and activity around regrouping for new performances locally and in new cities, particularly on the East Coast for historic nautical reenactment projects.
The project was immensely inspiring to me personally. To this day, I continue to create works of art, design, and music, drawing from my concepts as a foundation of inspiration and creativity.
Actors Alayna Christofson and Tess Aquarium portraying Merfolk in the watery depths of the Seas of the Subconscious
The historic San Francisco Mint building, 1874.
The 2013 All World’s Fair brought together cultures from parallel universes, alternate realities, and faraway worlds.
The Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain, sister ships based out of Grey’s Harbor at the mouth of the Puget Sound. I had volunteered as a crew mate.
Inspiration was drawn from antique nautical maps and fantastic, pre-Galilean diagrams of the cosmos.
A chest of props before set-up.
Actors Adam Flynn and Joe Walsh portraying the First Mate and the Captain.
Actor Fae Comisky portraying a mermaid, lurking in the silky kelp forest.
Sailors engaging the audience in intricate knot work.
Protective gear for exploring the Seas of the Subconscious.
Actors portraying sailors, a crew cast adrift on the Seas of the Subconscious. Randal Alan Smith, Adam Flynn, Joseph Hren, Kyle Fenwick
Visitors to the Seas of the Subconscious, filling out Dream Questionnaires.
Sample Dream Questionnaires.
The Captain, charting a course on our maps, using dreams to triangulate.
A mythical map of the Seas of the Subconscious, showing locations of figments of the subconscious mind in the Fatherlands.
A mythical map of the Seas of the Subconscious, showing locations of figments of the subconscious mind in the Motherlands.
Actor Laura DeLeon as the Dream Librarian.
Actor Laura DeLeon as the Dream Librarian.
Actor Shalaco Sching as a Merman.
Actor Ginn Fizz, captivating a crowd with her tales of daring adventures on the high seas.
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