“At night, I do the dream work. And then I try to reconstruct fragments of them using an artificial intelligence model trained on my photos and obsessions, spanning my childhood right up to the present day” – aurèce vettier describes le travail des rêves, a collection curated by Bright Moments Paris.

I had the great honor of speaking with aurèce vettier about the series in the lead up to the exhibition. le travail des rêves blends dreams and memories to express the deepest vulnerabilities of the human experience. Symbols of grief, love, awe, mystery, fear, and power emerge from the conversation between aurèce vettier and the algorithm he trained on the visual record of his life.

My interview with aurèce vettier will be published in Le Random Editorial during Bright Moments Paris. For now, I am delighted to share a glimpse of our conversation with readers of conVERSEverse.

xx VV, Elisabeth Sweet

Elisabeth Sweet: To decipher a dream, one may begin by naming what they see, feel, and remember. In a sense, these labels become the attributes of one’s personal dreamscape. Did you assign attributes for the works in le travail des rêves? If so, what are they?

aurèce vettier: Yes, absolutely. The token itself has a mechanical reference, so each image’s traits are recorded in the metadata along with the title of the piece. There are six attribute categories: Location, Feeling, Element, Is a bearded man present?, Is Death around?, and Is she sending a sign?

For example, token AV-2024-U-416 is titled “a multitude of moons appearing in the night sky”

Location: Sky

Feeling: Mysterious

Element: Air

Is a bearded man present? No

Is Death around? No

Is she sending a sign? Yes

The least common Element is Ether, the ancient fifth element of the Greeks. 

ES: Did you choose the images based on traits or assign traits later?

av: I curated the pieces that I felt were the strongest for the series, then I tried to be honest with the rarity traits. The rarity traits are conceptual, as a way to highlight the important transfer elements of the dreams and connect the pieces together.

ES: I understand that you hand painted several of the images from the series. Tell us about that.

av: I translated 35 of the works into oil paintings. These are the most personal pieces in the series, and it was important for me to create them specifically. I wanted collectors to give collectors the possibility of having a physical piece. Between February 21st and 24th, the collectors of any token can order the corresponding oil painting.

I am organizing an exhibition of some of these oil paintings and a cocktail party on February 21st at Bigaignon 18 Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, 75004, Paris. From 20:30 – 23:00, close to the Bright Moments Café. Everyone is welcome to attend!

ES: I believe it takes a measure of courage to release an artwork into the world. le travail des rêves is a remarkably personal piece, inviting the audience into your dreamspace, perhaps the only remaining realm of privacy these days. Did releasing this work require a different kind of emotional labor?

av: It was a huge emotional investment to create this series, but when it was complete, I knew intuitively that it had left the personal sphere and entered the global sphere.

It’s worth noting that this is part of a continuous body of work, which means I can put stop marks where I want and it doesn’t mean the story is over. Maybe that’s why I can bear to say that this particular series is complete. It’s part of a global, wider narrative that is never really finished.

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if you’re in Paris next week, please join aurèce vettier for a exhibition + cocktail party to celebrate le travail des rêves

Bigaignon 18 Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, 75004, Paris

20:30 – 23:00

be on the lookout for the full conversation, to be published in Le Random Editorial next week 🖤

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aurèce vettier embodies a collaborative, open, and hybrid approach through an algorithm-generated alias. This identity, like all of aurèce vettier’s work, bridges the ‘real’ and ‘data’ spaces. In the tangible world, it allows creation—drawing, painting, sculpting—while in the virtual realm, using artificial intelligence, it explores multidimensional forms. Since 2019, the machine-generated elements serve as raw material, expanding conceptual possibilities rather than being finished works.

Elisabeth Sweet is a poet exploring patterns of randomness. Her poetry has been exhibited in New York City, Paris, and Tallinn. She is part of the core team at theVERSEverse and supports exhibition production at Feral File. Through writing and live interviews, Elisabeth cultivates conversations with artists and curators around process, values, and meaning. Find her on X/Twitter at @speciesofvalue and read her other writing on Substack.