Through conceptual gestures of reflection and projection, DREAMLAND explores ideas of illusion, chance, and choice through a dream machine that critiques existing systems of control by reversing its logic and creating a stage that performs free association. 

 

The casino design reflects the larger phenomena of coney island amusement parks - an escapist fantasy with the illusion of free choice and randomness that operate under a system of control. The plus program, an improvisation theatre, reverses the architectural system of the casino and projects influence into the future in a space of true free choice.

 

Creating a conceptual link between the psychological process of free association (Salvador Dali) and the latent space in image generation through studies of computational psychiatry, the project is designed with a system that engages with entropy, free/bound energy, and shifting psychological states (Freud).
 

As people ascend from the maze of the casino and encounter the dream machine that constantly changes its opacity with the flux of the casino, the project reflects and projects definitions of escapism and dreamland by prompting how chance and randomness, as constants between existing and alternative systems, enable escape and change.