If you're confused by this YouTube soap opera, that's kind of the point
Artist Bridget Moser’s Dreams of Dusk is a new work inspired by Twin Peaks and crypto bros
Let's recap. Previously on Dreams of Dusk, Sarah and Laura, society girls who live for scandal, were on the verge of a major revelation. Sarah, spun out in self-reflection, had reached out to Laura for help, raising a question that could alter their worldview forever. Was Laura haunted by anxiety too? Are their champagne wishes and caviar dreams actually an existential nightmare?
What happens next is like nothing you've seen on daytime TV, but then, Dreams of Dusk was never meant to be an ordinary soap opera: it's a three-part series produced for YouTube; the break-out star is a pair of pantyhose named Linda; and, most notably of all, the program springs from the mind of Bridget Moser.
Moser, a former finalist for the Sobey Art Award, produced the project for CBC's Creator Network, and the final episode of Dreams of Dusk debuted earlier today.
Like any good soap, Dreams of Dusk is packed with bizarre twists and it features fabulously wealthy characters doing terrible things. Whether they realize they're doing them or not, however, is a whole other thing.
Moser describes it as a show "about dreaming, about ends of empire." And it's her surreal examination of the absurdity of privilege — as performed by esthetically pleasing knick knacks who are voiced by AI.
Shot at Moser's home in Toronto, "in the liminal space between the kitchen and the TV," the project marks a departure for the artist, who's known for her work in performance and video. In Dreams of Dusk, she turns the camera on a cast of "symbolically loaded" objects instead of herself.
An all-star cast of cursed objects
Sarah, a self-obsessed scion of a real estate dynasty, is played by a bottle of Glossier's You, a cult Millennial-coded fragrance that's beloved because it purportedly "smells unique on everyone." David, a white-collar criminal who spouts conspiracy theories and pronatalist views, is a miniature replica of Michelangelo's masterpiece. (His estranged son, an even tinier version of the same statue, is David Jr.)
As it happens, David Sr. provided early inspiration for the series. (The figurine, that is.) As part of her creative process, Moser collects stuff: things like giant Crocs or a T-shirt that says "Meatbar"— props that might eventually make their way into a performance. Before starting work on Dreams of Dusk, Moser had been gathering Classical kitsch. She was researching Statue PFP's, a subset of the chronically online who share an affection for subjects including "Western traditionalism" and crypto. "Instead of having a real profile picture, they have, like, a vaporwave statue of David as their picture," laughs the artist.
On Dreams of Dusk, David is introduced as delusional and self-important. He's desperate for approval and greatness, but can't face the facts about his failing career (or the possibility he's wanted for money laundering). The character is "an amalgam of lots of different problematic men," says Moser. "I mean, probably the most obvious one is Elon Musk, but it's not like a one to one representation of him."
In a way, all of the characters are composites — and somewhat interchangeable as well. Moser likes the idea of the audience mixing them up, maybe confusing a dollhouse-sized urn for a tiny Grecian column. Few character names are uttered on screen, and they're not listed in the credits either. (About that: the credits are fake — lifted from an old episode of Days of Our Lives, but adjusted to seem even "blander.")
Sowing confusion on YouTube in the best way possible
The confusion is all by design, Moser explains. "[The characters] are different fonts of the same person, so to speak," and everyone's guilty of something. As for the script, it's decidedly surreal. Most of the dialogue is inspired by real-life chatter, but as a nod to YouTube, Moser has thrown some platform-specific references into the mix. Listen for the titles of some of her favourite videos (like this one).
Unlike a regular soap, Dreams of Dusk won't keep running for decades. Now that the series is complete, Moser is considering incorporating the videos in a future performance as a sort of meta melodrama. One of the project's biggest influences was Invitation to Love, the soap-within-a-soap from Twin Peaks. Moser says she'd like to develop a piece where her persona is a huge Dreams of Dusk fan — "constantly watching it."
For now, though, it's the sort of thing you might discover through the magic of algorithm. Maybe it'll appear on your screen and you'll have no clue what you're watching. Maybe you'll wonder where Moser found that adorable miniature Croc. (His name is Roger.) And maybe you'll share the link with your group chat, or even just take a screen shot. For the artist, that sounds like an ideal outcome.
A few years back, Moser created a fur-covered skeleton that appeared in her 2021 performance, When I Am Through With You There won't Be Anything Left. "[I] put a photo of it on my Twitter, and then it ended up — very bizarrely — going viral," she says. Since then, she's seen it memed in multiple languages. People send her links whenever they discover a new one. "It's very satisfying to me … as someone who rips things from the internet a lot," says Moser. Dreams of Dusk felt like an opportunity to keep that dialogue going — to keep paying the cursed-objects forward.
Dreams of Dusk was conceived to be a show that "maybe anyone could stumble upon," says Moser. Viewers might be "kind of perplexed by it," she says, "but also, hopefully intrigued and amused."
Watch the complete series.
