I found the visit with Seb Chan interesting. I have been interning at QUT's The Cube and The Block, two spaces which are designed for digital and new media, so a talk from the Director of Digital and Emerging Media at the Cooper-Hewitt was a little exciting.
The background knowledge of the Cooper-Hewitt and other museums in the city was interesting. I thought there would be more staff, and the capital held in the bank by The Met was astounding. It goes some way to explaining the massive collections.
Seb made the point that technology is no longer a separate thing in our life. People are now constantly connected to the internet, meaning they interact with the world in different ways, and institutions have to move away from a small panel on a wall. I thought he was right when he said people don't really know how to use the technology yet, and sadly, few are willing to experiment. I was reminded of a discussion about my internship, when I said how much I enjoyed the progressive nature of The Block, with it allowing exhibitions and programs far away from the traditional, and I was told that I would get that experience nowhere else; everything was too traditional (although I believe MoNA may be right up there after the brief amount of time Seb spoke of it). Rather than being off putting, I find this to be an exciting challenge. These changes will be happening, and it would be great to be involved.
So many times people ask me what I want to do with my degree, and I'm always a bit vague, but I felt Seb Chan's talk helped me focus where I would like to go.
Next was a visit to The Met, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Words cannot describe how overwhelming it is. Museum and art gallery, we barely got through a fraction of the building before becoming numbed to everything we were seeing. The scale is massive, and the collection impressive. Yet while I appreciate being able to go into one building and experience everything there, I could not help but shake the feeling that it was all wrong. Many of the artefacts should be back where they came from, not ripped out, stolen and sold to another country.
A long day ended with a visit to Sleep No More. Recommended by Seb Chan, a group of us bought tickets while having lunch, and headed to Chelsea without really knowing what to expect. The owner of the restaurant we had dinner in told us he'd seen it and enjoyed it. With him telling us to keep an open mind, we made our way to the 'hotel'. There's no adequate way to describe the experience; a play you are immersed in, interacting with the set, with the actors, in a way far removed from traditional theatre. I came away exhausted and exhilarated. The lift operator told us the best experience comes to those who explore, so I headed out into the building determined to find all I could. The building itself could have been an experience, but stumbling upon scenes being acted out, sprinting through darkened corridors chasing the players, being dragged into a room and locked in with one of the actresses, I've never had such an immersive experience. While I loved the Broadway show, this was something else again. And I feel something I would not experience outside of New York.
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