The installation that I found very interesting is called “Made in ‘Eaven,” and it was created by artist named Mark Leckey.  It is a short piece of video, the length of it is around three or four minutes. It starts very abruptly and later on becomes very slow and smooth. In the beginning camera shakes a little and it creates a feeling that it was shot handheld. After that it starts moving and it is very stable as if the camera is on the dolly or on a very good stabilizer. Viewer of this piece sees just a white room with two doors, one window and one very suspicious looking sculpture of what it seems like a bunny. The camera gets closer and closer to the bunny but the interesting thing is that the bunny is made of completely reflective surface and still we don’t see the camera coming closer. The camera starts revolving around this bunny and there is a moment when it comes closer to the presumable head of a bunny and it feels strange and bizarre. The wicked feeling occurs because we are looking straight into the bunny’s head but we don’t see eyes or nose or any other features. As the camera comes closer we see the reflection or a part of a room that is always behind the camera. And, it continues revolving in a close up for a minute and as it dollies out we see a window and what is outside of the room. As the camera gets further from the bunny we see two doors and the body of the bunny. In the middle of the video, the camera gets back to its first position where it started and bizarre feeling happens again because the head of a bunny reflects two red pillar looking parts of a room and they are reflected exactly on the part of bunny’s head where eyes are supposed to be.

However, the most interesting thing about the art piece is that the video  looks as CGI rendering and it probably is because the camera is two fluid and there is no other way how the artist could get rid of the reflections on a bunny’s surface. Although, the way this art piece is shown is very not contemporary or binary. It was transferred on 16mm film and it is projected to a wall from an old projector that loops the video. In the beginning, I personally did not realize that it was a computer generated video because it was projected from a film. My initial thought was a wonder of how they made the camera flow so smoothly. Also, watching it from a distance helped to seal the illusion that it was real. However then the bunny’s head moment came in on a screen and it was too smooth and with no reflection of the camera. Around that time the realization came that it was created on a computer. In close inspection though it was still hard to distinguish because the room itself looks very natural and the lighting is very real.

“The New Order” exhibition in the Museum of Modern Arts was definitely an interesting experience because I personally have never been there until a field trip with the class. There were a lot of fascinating showpieces that caught my attention and there were also that I found strange weird and uninteresting. However, there was a showpiece that seemed to be having both traits as almost being on the edge of weird and boring but also captivating and enchanting. This show piece is called “Country Ball,” and it was created by Jacolby Satterwhite.

There is something in this video that really captivates and one can’t just walk away from it. As Satterwhite said in one of the articles “Country Ball is an attempt to recreate a home video from the late 80s of my family’s mother’s day cookout.” On the first viewing, this video looked as something that came out of a very altered state of mind with a use of some psychedelic  substances. Although, it might still be the case, on the second more closer look on the video, I can really notice details and indeed images of people pouring and cooking something. In addition to that, there are 3D animated people dancing with real faces superimposed on their heads. Jacolby said that he had to “perform in front of the camera and green screen a hundred times; later inserting those videos into a virtual space to create Hieronymus Bosch “Garden of Earthly Delights” inspired landscape.” 3D space is also full of details and hand drawing and some real home videos inserted in the background. What I really liked about this piece is movements inside this 3D landscape.

There is a constant movement of the camera. There are a lot of tilts and pans and dollies and sweeps of a camera and it creates a momentum that engages a viewer and makes it so much more interesting and not dull. In addition, 3D generated figures are also always dancing of doing something and it adds to the constant feeling of movements. In terms of sounds, we hear a song and people having fun on a background. It definitely sounds as something coming from an old VHS tape because the quality of a sound is not that good. Overall, this video piece by Satterwhite is very unique because I could not help myself but to stay and watch it. The somewhat psychedelic visuals and very vibrant and oversaturated colors definitely played a role in. 3D environment was also very strange because there were almost no hard and sharp corners or structures, everything was very ambiguous and the shapes were bent or just weird looking.

Also, the small detail that I really appreciated was a moment in the end when two people figures seemingly try to put cards into a wallet and they keep doing it over and over while being strapped or chained to something. The first thing that came to my mind was the analogy with Greek mythology and a story of Sisyphus Rolling Rock Up to Hill.

About three weeks ago I had a chance to visit Whitney Museum of America Art. The exhibition was dedicated to a very unique and in a way weird art of Andy Warhol. There were many different paintings, pictures, caricatures and abstract drawing on display at the museum. The whole Andy Warhol exhibition occupied three floors of the museum. The only things that I felt a genuine connection with were many different photos and color swapped pictures. Than one that I really liked was a picture of Marlon Brando in his leather jacket and a bike from the movie “The Wild One”. And to be completely honest, many film that were shown on the exhibition felt bizarre. I could not concentrate on one particular film because there were so many and all of them were strange.

However, the one that strikes my memory the most is shown on a third floor and screen shows Andy Warhol eating a burger. As I stood there watching I was thinking about the thought process behind this film and I might be wrong but there was nothing special about that piece. People around me were fascinated with this piece but I kind of was not.  After that I watched some other short film which were shown on small old TVs with a dedicated headset for someone who would want to listen. These film were also very odd in a way. One showed a lady cleaning her room, the other showed two people staring and arguing with each other. I felt as if I was watching aliens on screen who try to replicate people’s behavior and interact with each other. Maybe that was the whole point after all to create a feeling of alienation to a  viewers or it might be that I did not understand something. It is hard to tell because one of my friends was definitely interested and very invested in all the art pieces. When I asked her to explain it to me, she could clearly deliver the message though.

At the end of the day,  the thing that I took away from this is that we live in a world which is too contemporary in a way that every media that we consume now is commercialized. Everything is picked out very carefully. If it is a car then it is the most luxurious car that you can find. If it is a model then it is the most stunning model on screen. If it is a sunset on a beach then it is the most breathtaking and colorful sunset. And then seeing something as simple and weird as a man sitting in a white room eating a burger, it simply does not spark the same interest and attention to it. The only thing that it does spark is a feeling of awkwardness.