Serpent Dream

Multimedia Arts

Music and sound art

Carotoes, Dragon Rebirth: - 2023

Extract from artist text Caratoes

This ancient deity, is found in Mayan culture as Kukulkan and Aztec as Quetzalcoatl, Asian, as dragon. In all these ancient old cultures, they are known to embody a snake body and feathers around its head. They are known to be the god of creation and destruction. REBIRTH!

We build its feathered head, in an Ayahuaska temple in Tulum. Where healers from around the world have shared their medicine. 
We build the tail in Wuhan, China. We build a part of the body in Mexico City, that was the sacred center for the Aztec civilization.

This is the Dragon of collective healing Collective rebirth The more people who put attention on a specific intention the more powerful we are together, becoming part of the collective manifestation of our truest selves. BURN what you want to shed, watch your old self crumble away. 

This video performance celebrates the constant impermanence. We burned together what we created as a collective body in movement without exclusive location.
We are all part of the process, no attachments, no possessions. To let it go, to let it burn is to make space for transformation.

Credits:

Artwork "Rebirth Dragon” by: Caratoes
Produced by: Wolf Giridan and Antonio Hernandaz
Direction: Mire Moschella Coello
Editing: Antonio Hernandaz
Cameras: Paasca Schaller and Antonio Hernandaz
Music/Sound Design and Audio Mixing: Serpent Dream
Audio Mastering: Benjamin Lincoln at Middle Mastering UK

Deadlock Ritual Performance: 2022

The live performance of Deadlock at Nautilus Creative Space NZ, this performance was accompanied by an alter where the audience was invited to place an object, feeling or intention, with the purpose of letting go what no longer serves. String interlace between the candles were carefully trimmed and placed to burn during the 41 minute piece, severing the hold of past ghosts.

Credits:

Concept and Design by: Dirt Child Design and Serpent Dream
Photography by: Vanessa Cone

Visual art

Deadlock and other stories: 2022

Built off existing cast glass, photography, found objects and photogram work, Deadlock is digitally combined and transformed into bold abstract images, This work is part of an ongoing multimedia project exploring the fragility of the mind when exposed to traumatic experiences.

Deadlock embodies the emotions of hate, despair grief and helplessness,how through pain we inflict pain, blindly forming cycles of abuse and transforming into the monsters that hurt us. The key, acquired from an infamous and abandoned mental institute in Goulburn Australia, represents the hidden strength inside to unlock and transform our painful experiences into healing and growth.

The Revelation: 2022

For this multimedia installation, a child’s desk is draped in a heavy chain and a bible cut into pieces, echoing the fear, shame, and guilt imposed on the child’s mind. A hidden speaker under the desk emits an ominous, shivering sound of rattling chains. Above the floor a key hangs, obtained in an abandoned mental institution in Goulburn, Australia, symbolising the inner ability to unlock healing and transformation. Impressions of the key, captured by camera-less photography, are mutated into organic forms and crudely pasted onto the wall. Ripped Bible paper blows in the wind across the gallery floor.

The Revelation is the first experiment, a prototype, in an ongoing exploration around the experience of the artist's childhood in a family of inter-generational Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

Audio Visual art

Frames of Mind: 2021

Description by Kelda Morris.

Frames of Mind is one part of an ongoing series of works that explore the feelings surrounding sexual abuse.

I dreamed of this film over seven years ago and am so excited and relieved to have finally turned it into a reality. Dealing with the aftermath of sexual abuse is confusing, lonely and terrifying and working through these glass forms has helped me so much on my personal journey.

A glass magnolia flower represents both a purity which is lost, as well as the pain, fury and confusion that assault brings, which, in some cases, can be released.

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Directed: Dirt Child Design
Videography: Mire Moschella Coello
Music/Sound Design and Audio Mixing: Serpent Dream
Lighting director: Amber Jayne Bain

Papatūānuku (Song for the Long White Cloud): 2023

A part in the audio visual series by Aotūroa, Te Ao Māori uses the topography of an area to compose melodies that become the song of the land. The nguru performed is an interpretation of the topography of Aotearoa from Cape Reinga to Rakiura - Mātai from Te Ika a Maui and Serpentinite from Te Wai Pounamu.

The visual component is made with layered light leaks and morphing animations.

Credits:

Sound and Music: Aotūroa
Visual Design: Serpent Dream

Nova: 2017 - 2021

Nova is a multimedia work meshing electronic music, sound design, and audio-manipulation. The visual component consists of a multi-faceted, psychedelia inspired, mixed media projection. Inspired by travels with friends, this piece started as an idea to articulate this mantra that we have: to follow our passions.

We had been discussing how all-consuming work, and social and cultural norms instill in us feelings of self-doubt, neurosis, and for many, deep feelings of depression and anxiety. Using sampled audio of these conversations, I formed a narrative, a thread of individual experience and perspective that expresses the innate urge inside of us to create and explore within our world.

Credits:

Music, visual design and Audio Mixing by: Serpent Dream
Audio Mastering by: Benjamin Lincoln at Middle Mastering UK

About Serpent Dream

Serpent Dream is the moniker of emerging multimedia artist James Costin. Starting their creative pursuits as a musician and audio engineer, they graduated with distinction, an Advanced Diploma in Audio Production from the Canberra Institute of Technology, Australia in 2016.

Since relocating to Wellington, Aotearoa in 2020, Serpent Dream has expanded into the realms of sound and video art, cameraless photography, digital manipulation, found object and psychedelic painting. They have worked on collaborations and commissions locally and internationally, and have been deeply involved in arts communities such as Nautilus Creative Space and the Datura Children Project.

The driving force behind the art of Serpent Dream is to create new and wondrous sonic worlds and cross-cultural collaborations, while questioning the status quo and social and cultural frameworks.

Serpent Dream is open to commissions in:

Music and Sound Art
Video Art
Digital and Visual Art
Professional Audio Mixing

For inquiries and pricing use the form below and tell me about your project!