Dreamscaping

Dreams are a source of inspiration for writers, artists, and creative professionals for generations, but recent Generative AI (GenAI) tools make it possible to use natural language to record details of dreams in image form for creativity support. This series of works explores strategies for participants to record their dreams using text-to-image GenAI, as well as utilize their dream materials to support their creative workflows. We aim to highlight the unique contribution of dream experiences to art and design inspiration and how it can be supported by technology. Our methodologies include working with artists to create dream records and turn them into creative works, working with dream-enthusiasts using dream sketches for sharing and reinterpreting dream visualizations, and using auto-ethnography to uncover how we interpret dreams for creative support. The outcomes are both artistic exhibitions of dream content, and hands-on workflows for sharing dream inspiration and applying it to creative work. This work enriches the emerging community of dream-supported creativity in HCI and artistic practices.

Dreamscaping exhibition: Fringe Club Hong Kong (2024).
Dreamscaping workshop website: ACM Creativity and Cognition (CC'24).
Art paper published in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA'24).
HCI paper published in Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'24).