I went to see Astro Noise by Laura Poitras in the Whitney Museum. The piece is a walkthrough multimedia, interactive experience. When I first came into the space, I was confronted with a large screen with what looks like slow motion crowd reactions. For the most part these people were showing sadness and horror. This screen is showing footage of New Yorker’s reactions to the 9/11 attacks and wreckage. It sets the mood for what’s to come further in the gallery. The screen size and content is such that it’s hard to skim through and walk past it without reflecting for a while and watching.
The next part of the exhibit is the flip side of the screen which takes most of the length and width of the room, centered. This side shows what seems to be an interrogation by US soldiers of a prisoner in Afghanistan, assumed to be part of the terrorist group. This was jarring to watch, it made me feel uncomfortable, not because there was gore and violence, but because the soldiers had this man prisoner on his knees chained in a room. It’s something that happens behind the scenes of a country that’s at odds with another. We as an American audience never see the cruelty exhibited by our side in order to get what we want and to even get information out of people. To me it seemed that we don’t know the monstrosities that happen during a war, we just cheer when the bad guy is killed. The average American will never experience the meaning of war on their land. We are so disconnected from war overseas that it’s easy to brush off how cruel it actually is.
Once I are finished watching the screens, I walked into a room with many screens recessed in the wall at eye level. Each person can walk up to a screen and be isolated from the rest of the room. It was an interesting experience, with varying media in each screen that looked mainly like what a curated series of broken screens would look like. Others had written documents with highlighted words.
My favorite part of the exhibit was the last section of it. There was what looked like a huge table and people (visitors) were laying on it. I found an empty space and laid down on my back (that table was actually very comfortable). A movie was being projected onto the ceiling of what seemed to be a time lapse of the sky with some buildings in the periphery. I found this time to be so relaxing and I really enjoyed watching and experiencing that kind of media in an unconventional way. It was also interesting that we laid down near strangers yet we all just felt this togetherness, we were experiencing that movie together. I also really liked this idea for my room and possibly projecting my Netflix onto the ceiling so I can lay in bed and watch comfortably.
When I got up and left that room, I was back in the light and was ready to move on, when I noticed people sitting and staring at a screen directly outside of the exit. The screen was showing a thermal camera of the people on laying on the table. When I realized that, I felt like the joy from that moment was taken away. I was really pissed that we were just used like that! It was obviously to illustrate surveillance and how our every move is tracked. I just thought that being confronted with the thermal footage of the room with the table movie took away the sincerity that happened in the moment.
I really enjoyed the use of video in the space and how the live stream of the thermal camera was placed. I definitely created a strong reaction from me and my sister who also came with me. Thermal cameras are used in war to find the hiding people, and when it was used on us it almost felt like we were being spied on in a war type atmosphere.
Some photos I took of the exhibit:
First Screen when you enter the exhibit
Man in museum watching the screening of the “torture” video.
Small eye level screens.
Live thermal camera screen of the table screening.
