Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa
2014
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa is a mixed media installation commissioned by the Napa based di Rosa for the Bay Area Now 7 exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
The project presents an alternative creation myth of the di Rosa site in the format of a live action role-playing (LARP) game—a shared fictional narrative actualized in the real world by participants who physically enact the personas of assigned characters. Akin to a soap opera, the characters within a LARP game may persist from night to night for weeks, months, or years, as players come together to collaboratively build an unscripted story. Performed by an experienced LARP group from Sonoma County, the game was played throughout di Rosa’s unique 217-acre Napa property over three nocturnal gaming sessions in spring 2014.
Alongside approximately thirty players, Schönfeld collaborated with the storytellers of the LARP group to integrate di Rosa’s site and collection into their existing game, Sanguine Dreams, a vampire chronicle set in 1980s Sonoma County. As such, di Rosa enters as a significant character that shapes and molds the in-progress narrative. The result is an envisioned cultural history for di Rosa that shines new light on its singularity as a place. The goal of the work resides at a place between past, present, and future, where we can absorb and push beyond accepted histories to realize new potential. Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa reveals Schönfeld’s ongoing interest in the relationship between fiction and belief and the tensions that exist between defining our context and being defined by it.
Text by Amy Owen, curator di Rosa for the exhibition catalogue Bay Area Now 7
The Installation consists of three parts;
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; the Game a 21 minute projected video.
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; the Rules a 15 minute monitor video.
Mother / Venus, a 1954 Bruce Conner painting from the collection of the di Rosa.
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game (fragment)
digital video with sound, 21 mins. 15 secs., looping, 2014 (7 minute fragment)
The year is 1987. Welcome to the Sonoma Domain. Welcome to the di Rosa Estate. This domain was once a bastion of Toreador power. In the early 1970’s, Prince Ferdinand Andalucia and his entire court were tragically and mysteriously slain on the site of the estate. The dramatic and inexplicable means of their final deaths caused the domain to be abandoned for over a decade. Through all this time the di Rosa Estate has lain dormant, its terrible history shrouded in secrecy. Tonight, for the first time since the tragic events of the 1970’s, the court of Sonoma gathers at the di Rosa Estate.
from the introduction to Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game
The video piece Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game documents the playing of a Live Action Role-Playing game at the (LARP) game at the di Rosa by the Sanguine Dreams vampire gaming society. This game generated an alternate history for the site of the di Rosa and its extensive art collection which was dramatised for the video. All the dialogue and plot developments are inherent to the game and were created by the players in concert with the game's story-tellers.
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa installation at Bay Area Now 7
Shot of the installation Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa including the works:
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game
digital video with sound, 21 mins. 15 secs., looping, 2014
and
Mother / Lilith or Venus, July 6, 1954
Bruce Conner, 1954, Oil on canvas, 54 x 42 in., di Rosa, Napa
This 1954 Bruce Conner painting, which is part of the di Rosa collection, was given a significant role in the mythology of the Sanguine Dreams game by the players and is therefore exhibited along with the two video pieces. The installation was part of Bay Area Now 7 at the Yerbua Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Rules
digital video with sound (monitor), 15 mins. 15 secs., looping
Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Rules, engages out-of-character player Collin McKeown in a conversation about the intricacies of Live Action Role Play and the Sanguine Dreams group’s alternate vampire universe.
Production still from Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game
digital video with sound, 21 mins. 15 secs., looping, 2014
Production still from Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game
digital video with sound, 21 mins. 15 secs., looping, 2014
Production still from Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game
digital video with sound, 21 mins. 15 secs., looping, 2014
Production still from Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game
digital video with sound, 21 mins. 15 secs., looping, 2014
Production still from Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa; The Game
digital video with sound, 21 mins. 15 secs., looping, 2014