Consisting of sentences fragments, Moveable Type is located in the lobby of the famous New York Times building. It is composed of hundreds of screens on the walls and the sentences/ words are visitor comments from nytimes web page, nytimes.com. They also have news, information and lots of different fonts. The screens are attached to the walls that are bright orange.

The sentences are poetic, yet, they dont always make sense if you dont know the content or the event that it refers to. However, the screens are installed in a huge space and it takes a while to read it all. The sentences are somewhat organized by not topic but subject, such as, I, you etc … On the other hand some are organized according to the punctuation, such as, question marked sentences go in one row.

Whats interesting is that it consists of the readers as well as the newspaper articles. Thats what makes it interactive as the viewers feel like a part of the exhibition. It reminds me of the Christophe Bruno pieces as he also collected data according to people’s searches and responds online.

This exhibition was free and they are open until midnight which was super amazing for me! The exhibition consists of site specific installations created by different colors of light based on the time of the day, and, sound which becomes steady as the viewer stops moving. It investigates time and space in a very unusual way. As the time passes the lights change, I believe it is controlled by someone.  What makes it interesting is that it is very interactive and a different environment.

The projectors on the ceiling reflects shadows and shapes which appear to be moon shaped or letters etc… In class we have experimented with sound and I noticed how much sound can interact and change an environment. On the other hand we did activities where we changed the theme of a short film just by manipulation the sound. sound plays a big part in this exhibition as well as changing lights.

The exhibition consists of a lot of videos as well as photographs. The videos are very personal and kind of scary. At first as the viewer struggle to understand what is going on, the video/scene becomes clearer and sometimes slower too.  There are also referral to paintings, sculptures and poems. Most of the pieces are like collages.  It is an interesting experience as most of the pieces do refer to our class assignments. They are not professionally recorded, they seem like amateur footages and thats what makes them interesting.

One of the most interesting piece was the shelf that was full of toys made by Alys. The toys are made from discarded metal containers and the title is “The Collector.”

One of my favorite is Tornado in which the artist is present. He runs towards a tornado in a Mexican desert. Rest of the exhibition is very parallel to the idea of daring to do something. In a photograph there is a boy with a spoon towards his nose. The spoon is held by some sort of electricity. This explores technology & human relationship in an odd yet interesting way.

My theme is how media intrudes and sneaks into people’s lives. Google ads to tv commercials, we hear persuasive commercials and images that forces us to spend without thinking. Each work will support one aspect of this main theme. From advertising to the people’s utmost effort to own objects, I will be concentrating on alienation as well.
My 4 general artists are;
Christophe Bruno (Google Ads, aspect:advertising_video)
Paul Chan (Light Series, aspect:alienation_video)
Bruce Davidson (East 100 Street, aspect:social dilemmas captured_Photographs)
William Kentridge (Sobreity, Obesity and Growing Old, aspect: psychological effects of power_animation)

Classmate: My Neighborhood by Jane, (Audio)
Steve Reich : Rain, (Audio)

Myself: How would art sound like, eyes closed? (Audio)

How We Kill Rats in America

Frankfurt Kitchen and Memories by Huli

With my eyes closed, despite the distraction of shadows and my pupils, I could finally concentrate on my sense of hearing. Since I was sick, I said let me go to the closest park and just sit down with birds, trees and all that stuff from the nature. However, besides those noises I started hearing a heavy breathing. Turns out, the park next to my house is full of homeless pobresitos. Anyway, I opened my eyes of course gave them some change, not that I have a good heart but so I dont get an F from this assignment. I closed my eyes again nervously yet confident because I gave them enough change so they wouldnt come back right? Anyway, eyes closed all I could hear was people that were jugging, walking and having conversations. Each conversation was cropped, only a few  words from each. Some of the words; “and then”, “son of a *****”, “so what I did was” etc…. I heard 1 bus stopping and I knew it was 4.46 pm because that was the bus on the way back from my old job and it was somewhat ironic for me to sit on the benches of the homeless park, not to mention I lost my job too:)

A huge crowd got out of the bus and most of them didnt know each other, I know because they werent talking. For some reason, I felt the wind hitting my skin more than I would if I had my eyes open. By cancelling out 1 sense, I guess my other senses became more powerful in an odd and creepy way. It almost felt like someone was touching my hair when the wind got stronger at times. I got goose bumps with 3 layers of clothing so just picture it. The other thing I realized was the stories I made up for each sound. Such as “oh they must be coming back from shopping” because I heard curiously opened plastic bags. Or like “oh that son of a *****, she just called must be her boyfriend who dumped her because thats the reason why she is exercising”. That concluded my 10+ minute listening experiment.

soundmapping Brooklyn Museum2

From many cultures to religions, how would art ever sound like if it ever sounded like something?

Enjoy!