Dream Palace/Memory Box, an installation by Cultural Animal is tribute to the Master Musicians of Jajouka, this installation incorporates sounds and images of Jajouka, a village in Morocco’s Rif Mountains, drawing on both its history and its present to create a contemplative hallucinatory space. Spectators sit and watch the flickering light of Brion Gysin’s Dreamachine in a nook created to echo the porch of the Master Musicians’ house in the village, while listening previously unreleased 2006 recordings of Jajouka’s music. A hereditary sufi brotherhood, the Master Musicians preserve an ancient tradition of music, healing, and mysticism. Visitors to Jajouka like William Burroughs, Ornette Coleman, and the Rolling Stones were drawn to the village for the healing cathartic power of music and rituals that may date back to the rituals of the early Phoenicians. The installation transports visitors to a space for listening, looking, and being with the music of Jajouka, a rare opportunity outside the confines of the village itself.

Dream Palace/Memory Box is a rhizomatic outgrowth of a forthcoming feature documentary called The Hand of Fatima (www.thehandoffatima.com) about New York Times music critic Robert Palmer’s lifelong friendship with the Master Musicians. Both works are being created by Cultural Animal, LLC (www.culturalanimal.com) a media production company specializing in work about cross-cultural experience co-founded by Augusta Palmer and Chris Arnold. Augusta Palmer is the director of this collaborative installation drawing on music played by the Master Musicians of Jajouka (www.jajouka.com) , images shot by Juan Carlos Borrero and Ngo Vinh Hoi, sound recorded by Michael Gassert, video editing by Chris Arnold, animation created by Hongsun Yoon, as well as architectural consulting and fabrication by Peter Branton. Filmmaker, artist, and film scholar Augusta Palmer is the director of The Hand of Fatima and the daughter of Robert Palmer.