parapronoia

LUCID NIGHTMARE

PARAPRONOIA is a three part visual album and short film written and directed by me. Part One: Lucid Nightmare, was shot in August 2024 with funding assistance by Visual AIDS and LA County Arts Council grants of $8,000 in total. The first visual segment and song, "Lucid Nightmare," was featured in Visual AIDS's Red Reminds Me as a part of the 2024 Day With(out) Art which premiered at The Whitney Museum of American Art and MOCA LA. Followed by over 120 screenings worldwide and translated to more than 10 languages as part of the distribution.

PARAPRONOIA is combination of the words 'paranoia' and ‘pronoia.' Little is known about pronoia even though we have also experienced this many times. Pronoia is the feeling that the universe is conspiring FOR YOU. 

This film is about crip emotional intelligence, radical resilience, and mediating conversations on intimacy, technology, and immune surveillance through transmissions of social control from an infected perspective. It’s a meditation on how we can(not) heal in the environments that make us sick, and how the media perpetuates disabling identity; utilizing magical realism through the lens of auto-fiction, with an assemblage of practical and digital effects to humorously reimagine the current cultural zeitgeist on mental health. 

With original music produced by Rush Davis and mixed by JP Negrete, Vasilios teamed up with artists Ah Mer Ah Su and MAHAWAM to create three records that flow through the story. 

The final edit of Lucid Nightmare is still in the works as we seek more funding opportunities to finish post-production. 

"Love Within," and "Come Alive," are in the process of being mastered.

The future of this work is TBD! 

Contact me if you are interested in supporting my creative journey!

When a paranoid ketamine addict hits rock bottom during the onset of a global pandemic, a virus causing rapid genetic mutation, they must choose between changing or staying the same.