Wet Dream Book

Wet Dream is the second publication of photographic work by visual artist, Brian Teeling. This work has been commissioned by the Irish Museum of Modern Art and was first exhibited at IMMA in 2019 as part of ‘A Vague Anxiety’, curated by Seán Kissane.

When taking photographs, you are forced to become a collector of fragments in time. Visions of your past can be reflective, acting like a vivid memory. But to collect these photographs, these fragments, to store them (digitally or physically), to present them in any format, is to accept that you are to be haunted. Although not cursed, you will be plagued by potential realities and lost futures.

Wet Dream is swarming with ghosts. These photos were taken before, during, and after a multitude of sexual encounters throughout 2015–2017. Each photo represents a new body. A friendly stranger, familiar friend, convenient neighbour. Bathing in the glow of a red lamp, it’s like they’re caught in a river of never-ending brake lights. Existing now as radiating shadows in this gloomy bedroom.

These hookups became ceremonial, with a series of unchanging totems. The mirror, the red light, the soundtrack provided by HTRK’s Psychic 9–5 Club, the bed, the men. These things became part of the psychic architecture of an apparent desire for intimacy, however fleeting. This transactional void sometimes leaves you feeling hollow, as though you could never feel love.

“Looking back now, these images haunt me as a temporal paradox that displays an array of potential fictional futures, where time begins to decay, regress, or cease altogether.”
– Photography throughout by Brian Teeling.

Text by Jonnine Standish & Nigel Yang (HTRK) from ‘Psychic 9–5 Club’ (2014)
‘Transmission’ by Matt Kinlin (2023)
‘Wet Dream’ by Brian Teeling (2023)
Kindly supported by IMMA & The Arts Council of Ireland
Published by MSCLTR-/ SMIW Editions
Graphic Design: Keith Nally, SMIW, Ireland
First edition: 250 Copies (2023)