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| steve-wang-art-contemp [2022/12/23 01:11] – created steve.wang | steve-wang-art-contemp [2023/01/29 19:19] (current) – steve.wang |
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| ====== Steve: essay about the museum of contemporary art ====== | ====== Steve: essay about MOCA ====== |
| | [[steve-wang|Steve Wang]] |
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| | On a very terrible day, we went to visit MOCA Taipei. It was a complete disappointment compared to the last museum we visited. It could only be described as the first movie was great but the sequels were trash. I was hoping for something as significant as the Shrek sequels. As disappointed as I am, there were a few good things I guess and I am going to record them down here. The exhibition was called Transistors. That sounded a bit stupid and I did not see much that had to do with transistors. Thinking about it logically, I there were circuits but no transistors. For example, the lights were a circuit and all the displays were circuits. Below, I have recorded a few memorable things, the mosquito killer, the phone trapper, the UV light sensor, and the spam caller. |
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| I hated art. When I think about art, I usually think about big canvases with a lot of paint on them. It probably also looks messy and weird. Sometimes even the thing the drawing is about is. Looking at unmoving art can be really boring. I loathe going to museums and looking at art for boring things like tables and chairs. They are super boring but a great place for a nap. However, last week, I was forced to go to a messed-up imagination of a kid they call an art museum. The magical part was it was able to trick professional art people like my teacher into thinking it was a real art museum. I was really surprised that I enjoyed myself because I hated museums and most art. That made me want to document some of the most insane things they had there. First, we went to the funhouse section, then, the haunted house section. Lastly, the messed up section. All of those things showed me a whole new way of thinking about art. | I felt that the mosquito killer was really weird when I saw it. It had two rectangles and a computer inside that room. Inside the rectangle on the right, there were two pits of water for mosquito larvae to grow, and there were two tubes pumping liquids into the two boxes. One of them looked like blood so I assumed they were food for the mosquitoes. On the box beside it, there was light and the light killed mosquitoes. Kind of messed up. They breed mosquitoes for them to be killed. Looking at the computer, there was a simulation of a bunch of humans trapped in the walled-off area that kind of looked like a container. So, I assumed that they were comparing the humans in the simulation to the trapped mosquitoes. All of that makes me think that the artist wanted to show that life is short you should live life to the fullest before you see the blinding white light when you die. There are also things that can end your life at every corner. When I saw this, I left very quickly because it was weird and disgusting that they had a lot of mosquito larva in a small area. That was my excuse, I think it was mainly because the room was really hot. |
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| In the funhouse section of the museum, there were a few "boring pictures". However, what caught my eye was amusing pictures that looked like a 5-year-old drew them. One of them which I liked was a picture of a guy with a chicken or bird with two heads. To put it simply, it was a picture that would pop up in your mind when you were showering. There were also many other pieces of art with concepts just as crazy. Also, it was not drawn super realistic. It was a cartoon drawing with a guy's head and a two-headed bird. The artist gave it the name of seeing you guys talking. Those kinds of pieces of art blew me away. How did those pieces of art get into a museum? That made me wonder what the people picking art for the museum were smoking. I also wondered if you had to be sober when you were at work. However, the sheer madness made me truly enjoy myself. The simplistic design made me think of art in different ways. It felt relatable and realistic. Unlike something like Mona Lisa which was unachievable for everyone except masters at drawing. Abnormally, it was bright and cheerful. Which allowed me to relax because of how ridiculous it was seeing those kinds of art at a museum. My teacher would say that the artist wanted us to think seriously about this piece of beautiful abstract art. I disagree, I think the artist was probably just having a drink with his friends and decided to have an art competition. | To get some fresher air, I moved onto the second floor where I saw some boring weird stuff. To stimulate my mind I quickly gave myself a dosage of medicine and went on to explore the great unknown. I found myself outside a room with a tiny rectangle pillar that had a half-open square that looked like a square Pacman without the color and the teeth. My classmate saw a port for her phone so she tried to put it in to charge. However, before she could do it properly, the mouth of the square pacman began closing. She immediately moved it out and the box said that it would open in twelve minutes. That was when the person in charge of the room came up to us and told us the box was supposed to trap your phone and take electricity from it. I immediately liked the person, she did not come talk to us before my classmate tried to put her phone on it. I think she secretly wanted to see someone's phone trapped. Following that train of thought, I went out and scouted for the next victim. I then saw the teacher and tried to trap his phone but only one machine was working. So, we trapped the phone but it did not disharge the phone battery. That was really disappointing but at least the phone was trapped in there. That was until the worker in charge of the room came and told us it was broken and freed the phone. I was terribly disappointed and I thought I was starting to like that person. Looking back, I think that person pitied the teacher. The teacher was being bullied pretty badly. I can't really fault her for standing up for the weak and protecting the helpless. After that I left pretty quickly because the broken machines made the experience was terrible. Before leaving I thought a little bit about what the artist wanted to communicate. I think the artist wanted to say that people are too reliant on their phones and he wanted to combat this by confiscating your phone for a random amount of time. At discharging your battery to limit your screen time. It was straightforward but interesting nonetheless. I also really liked the design of the whole mechanism. It looked simple and used basic shapes. |
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| In the haunted house section, they had stop motion animation. At that time I was beginning to wonder if I was the one smoking something weird. The exhibition was about the sets they used to make the animation. It was super creepy but the loony design looked like a little kid's imagination. The animation was about a creature that was a combination of an ugly horse, a deformed flamingo, and an angry yellow bird. That ... umm thing was jumping on the top of crocodiles like they were lily pads. The crazy part was I did not understand the plot of the story. Maybe there was no plot, just the jumping. Maybe they just wanted to show what they can do. My teacher would say that this is an abstract animation that prompts you to form your own conclusions on what they were doing. However, I felt that the artist/director was just testing the limits of the suspension of disbelief. Either way, most people seemed satisfied after watching that nutty animation. | Next to the boxes's room, I hear a bunch of ticking noises. It sounded like those rhythms people use to put others to sleep. The different part was, they were random. Like a moth attracted to light, I went into another dimly lit room that had creepy red lights in it. There were was a big fence that stretched up to the roof with grad patterns in it. The special thing was, at every intersection, there was a box thing that had creepy red lights on it. Looking closer, I could see some sort of circuits on it. I could not figure out what was going on until the teacher told me what it was. He said that it would click when it detected UV light. That explained why the room was dark but I am not sure if the artist constructed it properly. When I pulled open the curtains, there was roughly the same amount of clicking noise. It does not matter if he made it right or not, it should click more so the audience would be interested. That made this place even more of a disappointment. Just as disappointing as most parents are in their children. Next, I pressed onward and saw many weird and questionable pieces of artwork until I got to a big room. In it, there were many different prices of art. However, one thing caught my eye. I called it the spam callers. It would generate numbers the same way the companies who provide numbers do and they would call the numbers and see if they picked up. To run it they would generate the numbers, display the numbers in the browsers, and call them. After the calls have been made they would switch to another number. The craziest part was, they were using Thinkpads which made Dr.Bell very happy. I also thought he was a bit jealous because that Thinkpad was newer than his. Even though this is pretty cool, it is annoying and I am not sure if this is legal to do. I think this thing is trying to show us one of the ways spam callers could do it. The name, annoying, which the artist gave it really fits. |
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| Just when I thought the strangest was behind me, I walked into a room with a 20(estimated) sided flute. I later dubbed this section the room of messed-up thoughts. The sound that came out of it was music from a horror film. I immediately decided to not mess with it and move on. Clearly, I made the wrong decision. I went to a movie theater deeper inside that same section because I was tired of the madness. Personally, I think the person who was putting the movie on, accidentally put on an R-rated movie. It was a real challenge to try to describe what I saw in a way that was appropriate for a school essay. I watched it for about 30 minutes and from what I can tell, it was a German film about a mentally deranged soldier who really had issues. He thought the noodles of his pasta were bugs and things in his reality were disappearing. That was the "normal part". The disturbing part was, he saw a woman kissing a man, the woman called him son and in another scene kissed him. To be clear it was not a motherly kiss on the cheek. Also, he kept changing appearances. I may have missed something because I left to keep my sanity. Nonetheless, I asked my classmate who watched longer than I had. He also could not make any sense of what was going on. My teacher would probably say that the director/artist was trying to tell us in a slightly exaggerated way about what a mentally ill person can be going through. Anyhow, I think either the director just had some issues of his own or, when I took my medication that afternoon I took something else. Either way, I think the person planning what to put in this "art museum" did an excellent job. It made me consider going again. | Well, that's it. The place was pretty small. On the first floor, I saw the mosquito killer. On the second floor, I saw the phone trapper. Next, I saw the weird UV light detector and the spam callers. There were a few other exhibitions like people blowing balloons but it was pretty boring. The transistor exhibition felt like an old rich guy's house from 30 years ago that he turned into a storage room. I would strongly suggest that you to not go visit this museum unless you were very bored in the middle of the night but can't sleep. In conclusion, my experience there was very disappointing. I urge the museum reconsider their exhibition name, a better name for this exhibition would be disappointment. |
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| From this trip, I learnt that either I was living somewhere in the mountains with no internet, or, maybe I or people in general, have started to open their minds to new kinds of art and are now more accepting of different things in life. The painting, animation, flute, and movie all taught me valuable lessons. This reality is crazy, things do not always make sense but, it is important to have an open mind once in a while and think about things from different points of views. The thing about art is, most of the time, there is no good or bad art. There is only one's take on it. The art here is weird but serves its purpose. It was memorable and helped me write this essay in less than 30 minutes. I think I now only hate some kinds of art. I am very thankful for the chance to go to visit this messed-up imagination of a kid and would suggest you visit it. I genuinely enjoyed it but viewer discretion is advised for some parts. | |
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