Really Large Numbers

From These Woods

From These Woods is an exhibition of projects, objects and ephemera. The titular installation is a series of animated videos that chronicles the story of a deer who can travel through dreams. Originally inspired by the true story of a buck swimming from Jersey City to Governor’s Island in 2010, Really Large Numbers reimagines the buck’s adventure as a celestial journey. The artists cast their own minds as the “islands” he moves between. The videos have a lively fairy tale structure. Each incorporates a mysterious, geometric teleportation device that allows the deer to move between realms and travel deeper and deeper into bizarre brainscapes.

This and other projects showcased exemplify a persistent strategy of Really Large Numbers’ practice—fantastical interpretations of the natural world blended with empirical research of human relationships, communication structures, and symbols. From These Woods is the first installation by Really Large Numbers in Baltimore.

Really Large Numbers created this work while participating in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space residency on Governor’s Island in Upper New York Bay, and Artists Alliance Lower East Side Studio Program in Manhattan. Their work is supported by the Oregon Arts Commission in Portland, OR.

Really Large Numbers

Really Large Numbers is the creative expedition of multidimensional artists Chad Stayrook (Brooklyn, NY) and Julia Oldham (Eugene, OR). Stayrook and Oldham’s partnership began in 2011 when they encountered each other spontaneously as characters in dreams of mythic adventures. This dream thread led them inexorably to a collaborative relationship that combines science, fantasy and dream language to blur the boundaries between the Real and the Unreal.