Illuminated Dreams is an installation consisting of an interactive book of narratives from dreams chronicled by the artist over the last two years. The manuscript is presented as an Adobe Flash application playing on a self-contained computer system in a lecturn with a vertically oriented 24-inch diagonal 1920 by 1200 pixel resolution monitor. The interactive book is situated within a form resonant with medieval illuminated manuscripts.
My work emerges out of the uncanny, the double-take, out of those things which make us think twice about the meanings, intentions, and hidden connections in the world around us. My practice seeks to engage my audience with the fluid inter-connections that are all around them. I do this through works which turns viewers into more than just a passive participants, but into inter-actors – individuals who through their agency within the work becomes intimately engaged with the it in both active and reactive ways, and modifies the state of the work itself.
Images below are liscened under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License and should be attributed to James Khazar, 2007
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The Flash Movie which makes up the on-screen installation is 1200 pixels wide by 1920 pixels high in size. Click 
here to see a scaled down version (640 x 1024)(warning: this is a non-streaming 30 MB file and will take a while to load), or you can download the .fla source file here.
Illuminated Dreams’ format is based on illuminated manuscripts. Those manuscripts were developed in the early part of the Middle Ages as a form of reproduction for sacred texts. By the thirteenth century these manuscripts start to demonstrate sophisticated use of textual devices, including glossa and marginalia. Glossae were usually commentary texts laid out between the lines of the main text of the manuscript. This inserted text spoke with a critical and authoritative voice, often guiding the user – clergy who presented the scriptures to their flock – on the institutionally official interpretation of the text. While glossa served an institutional and exegetical function, marginalia – often a lined area on the side of the main text and filled in by the individual clergyman who used the book – served the function of localizing the commentary for the use of the presenter.
After June 2007
Compass 2007: New Art from the University of California's MFA ProgramsNew dream added.
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