Tomorrows World, Yesterdays Fever (Mental Guests Incorporated) extends Abigail Lane's preoccupation with the fantastical, the Gothic and the uncanny through a trio of arresting and theatrical installations which are based around film projections.

Lane is well known for her large-scale inkpads, wallpaper made with body prints, wax casts of body fragments and ambiguous installations. In these earlier works Lane emphasized the physical marking of the body, often referred to as traces or evidence.  In this exhibition Lane turns inward giving form to the illusive and intangible world of the psyche. Coupled with her long-standing fascination with turn-of-the-century phenomena such as séances, freak shows, circus and magic acts, Lane creates a “funhouse-mirror reflection” of the life of the mind.

The Figment explores the existence of instinctual urges that lie deep within us. Bathed in a vivid red light, the impish boy-figment beckons us, “Hey, do you hear me…I’m inside you, I’m yours…..I’m here, always here in the dark, I am the dark, your dark… and I want to play….”. A mischievous but not sinister “devil on your shoulder” who taunts and tempts us to join him in his wicked game.  The female protagonist of The Inclination is almost the boy-figment’s antithesis. Emerging from the dawn glow of an ocean shoreline this fragile, ghostly siren entreats us to follow her as she lights her way, slowly up the beach. The film is accompanied by a haunting sound track, composed for Lane by DJ and Producer, Matty Skylab.  The more playful The Inspirator features the surreal vision of a panda playing a trumpet in the depths of a forest.  The poster declares, “Her mind was a WILDERNESS, her world a WASTELAND and then from nowhere HE RETURNED”.  This whimsical and unexpected creative spirit smiles fleetingly on those he favors before disappearing, leaving only the outline of his grin.   A glitter ball and mirrored fountain create a magical but unworldly fairground setting to accompany the Inspirator’s celluloid world.