Following up with the first exhibit I went to, I was taken to yet another museum exhibit about the use of technology within art. New Order is a compilation of older MoMA exhibits with use of many different interactions with technology, not focusing one a specific theme, but just one of general appreciation. The gallery held a range of levels of interaction between each of the pieces.
One example included a supermarket like display of bottles with inclusions of aspects of modern American culture. The items listed on the bottles were taken “literally” and ripped and dumped into the bottles. It proved one of my favorite pieces, as the items did not create a super ugly creation, but instead was aesthetically pleasing. Usually scathing social commentary creates something that looks ugly and is meant reflect the ugliness in the people watching This one looked cool, so I was actually intrigued to see what was in all of the bottles. Ironically, this may or may not defeat the purpose of the piece, but I enjoyed myself.
Another piece was a repurposed exercise bike with three monitors attached in front of it, so that you could look at the images as you pedal. I was more excited for the piece then I felt I should have been, because it ends up being this weird 3D woman who is supposedly supposed to interact with the bike. I was less interested about the supposed consequences of the peddling, and was in fact, more excited for the actual peddling. Being involved in the exhibit makes me excited, but I’m not sure if this was the point it was making. I still had fun for the minute I was on.
Lastly, there was this really weird video with weird 3 deletional object with an off-psychedelic vibe and house music, and an incorporation of a real-life video of and urban dance off. Making this piece more puzzling was the included introduction of it next to it, which included an author and a title, but no explanation to the artist’s attempt. It hurt my eyes. But it beat the piece of cardboard next to it.

This weekend, I went to the Whitney museum in the Chelsea neighborhood and observed the exhibit Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965-2018. The exhibit was a compilation of art created by all levels of programming that were at once introduced in the Whitney at one point of time. The exhibit deals with all types of experiments and productions that people worked with in art.

One of the most notable productions was a “choose your own adventure” laser that detailed the life of a women who spent a month without leaving her home because of Agoraphobia. I found it interesting, because I had no idea what was going on, but the idea was “gimmicky” or interesting enough to keep me pressing the different options and seeing how the adventure could end until I felt like I stayed at the piece too long. The piece is surrounded by a fake living room with a really comfy couch that lets you change the menus with a DVD remote, and I felt so comfortable watching everything, I felt uncomfortable sitting for too long when other people began to gather.

Another piece, which was the star attraction of the exhibit, was a giant multi-television media which was programed to use every monitor as part of the same piece. He video switched mainly between a video of David Bowie performing a dance with a woman, a blue faced computer-generated face, and a video of a naked lady walking with funky video effects. The piece gave me different feelings, as some of the things that the televisions showed worked in unison to create a piece, while other times, it felt random. I enjoyed it when the televisions flashed in union with a Bowie Song in a sort of pseudo music video only possible with the sit up of televisions. I initially did not care for the other seemingly random stuff, but after some time to effect I find myself looking fondly at the randomness and appreciative about the work someone made to program the televisions to do them, which isn’t normal for me.

The rest of the exhibit felt like the usual. Stuff that’s almost intriguing but is so far away that I didn’t really see the beauty of it. Although the aesthetics didn’t please me, I was always intrigued to learn how the artists were able to create their work, and in learning the goal of that artists and learning the steps and work they took to get there. When it comes to programming, a thing that is often unseen questioned, it was cool to see people ask their own questions and experiment with it in both the real and virtual worlds. In the end I felt like I gained more then ever thought I would.