The IMA Spring Show: Medium of Exchange

I attended the opening reception of the IMA Spring Show: Medium of Exchange last friday with a friend who also takes MEDP/FILMP 150.

I didn't go just for the free food! I didn't even know there would be free food, and I didn't take a bite nor a sip of anything!

Anyway, I remember when I walked in I went to see a documentary, World's Fair, by Kalim Armstrong. It's about George Anton, who has a small houseboat. It's about how the government used to allow him to live in his houseboat, but all of a sudden wanted him to live. I like how as he spoke about this problem, there were shots of Anton making a model of a boat. The documentary ended with his model completed, polished, and mounted on a stand. I think it was a good choice to set the documentary up like this because the audience gets to see how happy this guy is living his life on a boat making models of boats. I sympathize for him and root for him over the government.

After that, I walked over to an information graphic of a map of obesity rates in the United States. I also realized there was free food next to the mini-theatre where I saw World's Fair, and I also realized why my friend disappeared. It was funny because she was stuffing her mouth while we were looking at the map. I like the choice of colors used in the animation of years 1985-2005. It's easy to tell the transition from the color white to purple, so it was easy to tell how much the obesity rates had risen every year.

Near the center of the room was an exhibit, called Solander, by Sarah Friedland (You're probably the only one who will be reading this, but I'll be formal anyway and use third-person instead of saying 'you' :) ). It was two small amiel arch mirrors, only about 1-1.5 feet high, hinged together. In front of it was a small projector, which projected parts of videos of Friendland's family history into one mirror pane at a time, and sometimes multiple panes at the same time. I like how the mirror ended up looking like a window since the room is black and the video fits into each pane, so it was as if I was watching Friedland's family history through a window. A lot of people watched it, though, and put the headphones on, so the projector kept getting moved a little and the videos ended up unaligned.

I also liked the Hunter/Gatherers exhibit, where there were two little TV's in big paper bags and a shopping cart in between them. The TV's showed videos of people buying things they don't need, which was the purpose of the exhibition.

Right before I left, they (I don't know who they were) just got the giant interactive mouse working. It was cool, because when they pushed it up to the obesity map, the MacBook on the interactive mouse would know that it's in front of the map, and would display its name. I think it was too big for a room full of so many people, though.

I had to leave because it was already 8:30 p.m. and I was late to a free dinner at Hunter's dorms (Now I went to that event for the free food). It was my first time going to the dorms, too.