Projects 102 was like a huge integrated mashup of Neil Beloufa’s different works. It incorporated his sculpture furniture, his film People’s passion, lifestyle, beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers all surrounded by water, as well as the many different ways of viewing it, and a bunch of his other pieces throughout the installation. I didn’t want to leave until I understood exactly what was going on. And there was a lot going on. He created many different ways for you to consume his film. Each different form of viewing the film visually was tied together with one soundtrack.
What I observed is that there are hidden cameras inside little domes with seemingly random magazine clippings, little sculptures, drawings and objects stuck all over the clear dome. These seem random but aren’t because the little cameras capture the necessary images inside the dome to sync up with the narration of the movie of the imaginary place that was being described by the actors in the film. So if they were referring to “wine” the little camera would turn to the picture cutout of wine glasses and transmit that image to the television screen and it would get overlapped and spun around with other relevant dome-pieces as the narrators went on with their descriptions.
At the center of it all is a huge moving sculpture that refracts the projection of the film on to different Plexiglas panels. And in a somewhat separate room the film is playing in it’s original form on a screen. It is because of this screen that I was able to understand everything that was going on with the entire project.

Last Friday I visited MoMa to see the Mapping Journey Project installation. I didn’t know what to expect because I didn’t read about it until after I had seen all of the installations from start to finish. It took about 45 minutes to watch them all. I started watching somewhere in the middle of Project #3 because it was closest to the entrance and there was a seat available, but I stayed until it went black and restarted itself. From there I stood in a spot where I could see all or most of the screens so that I could see which one was about to restart, the next one to turn black was Project #6 so I went there. I continued to do this until I finished watching all of them; that way I could see each of them from beginning to end without having to wait around for a specific one to start over or having to catch one in a random spot. Watching it the way I watched it with the headphones on and everything made it feel like an immersive documentary, but my mind filled in the blanks that the qualified commentator is supposed to fill. The way these videos were shot reminded me of those “Draw My Life” videos on YouTube because you could only see a hand drawing on a surface and hear the person’s voice without their face while they basically told you a story about their life. I did some research and it turns out that the first “Draw my Life” video was put on YouTube in 2011, which is curious because that is the year that Khalili completed the project. You learn about these people and find yourself rooting for them but you don’t even know who they are. My favorite one was #5 it was also the longest. I liked it because of all the detail the person gave. Some people were more vague or distant, but he gave details into his personal feelings and experiences and he was really deep. And there were so many times when he could’ve died or given up but he always stayed positive and kept trying to reach his goals. You could tell he was a good person based on the way he spoke about life and the fact that the commanding officer in the prison was probably so fond of him that he offered him a job in his home once he got released from jail. You could tell that these were good people that don’t deserve to get thrown in jail and stuff they’re just trying to make a living and follow their dreams. I think the installation is more meaningful when you immerse yourself into it like I did, but people didn’t really seem to be paying much attention to it, they would just look at them for a couple seconds and walk away. After I finished watching everything I noticed that there was a little floor plan of the installation painted on the wall so I felt inspired to map my journey through Bouchra Khalili’s The Mapping Journey Project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_cHB8Qru9U