Class Commentary-March 17th

The McColl Center: Phantasmagoria
The exhibit was amazing. I throoughly enjoyed every piece at the show. I don't know how many people read the synopsis of the show but it was based on a precinema projection ghost show invented in France in the late 18th century. Each piece was unique and dynamic. I hada couple pf favorites though. One was the silhouettes that moved electronically across the still frame image of the Met in NYC. I thought this artists captured something so pure with the forms. If you break it down, aren't we all just beings. Spirits that exisit. If you take away our physical bodies, your spirit is no more special than mine orthe next person. We are just there. We come. We go. This piece put me into a trance everytime I stood in front of it. I could have watched it all day long. It was soothing as well as mysterious. I wonder though...if the McColl center had put it somewhere else in the exhibition space. Like if it had been located in the back instead of up front as soon as you walk in. OR if the piece was located on a main wall perpendicualr to the walking path instead of parallel to it so that it would be in line of sight. Basically a framed view. I also enjoyed the seat that smoked. When you sat down in front of it you looked at your self in the mirror and then you dissapear. I enjoyed it for the fact that it comforted me. I loved being surround by the smoke. It felt jsut like how my feels sometimes....cloudy. It was a release from existence. I disapeared momentarily. But I wonder if the setting changed would the way people recieved the piece change? If this seat were located on a busy corner of an intersection in NYC and someone sat down on it and they dissapeared...would it draw more or less attention? In a environment like that people are robots, drones, ants. They have a path, they walk it. Oblivious to anything that goes on around them. You don't exist anyway to them. For all they care you couldbe a tree in front of them that they have to walk past. Would a big puff of smoke shock them out of the everyday trance they live in?