Dreamachine

Explore the extraordinary potential of your mind through Dreamachine. This once-in-a-lifetime journey into light, sound and colour is a unique new way to disconnect from everyday life – and reconnect with both yourself and others.

Dreamachine is inspired by a 1959 invention by artist Brion Gysin, which used flickering light to create vivid illusions, patterns and explosions of colour in the mind of the viewer.

Sixty years later, Collective Act has brought together Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble, Grammy-nominated musician Jon Hopkins and a host of pioneering scientists, technologists and philosophers to reimagine Gysin’s concept as a kaleidoscopic new experience conjured by light, music and 360-degree spatial sound. The most complex technology required is the human brain.

Tens of thousands of visitors have enjoyed the 21st-century Dreamachine for free in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London during 2022, and many more have completed the ongoing Perception Census, one of the largest scientific studies into perceptual diversity ever undertaken. This pioneering online study has the potential to transform our understanding of the different ways in which we each experience the world. So why not click here to let us know how you see things?