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.