Museums, memorials and memories lecture

This week our lecture was about museums, commemorations and memories. It was a good lecture and the film was very interesting.

I learned a lot about museums. I didn't know how they began. This part of the lecture reminded me of the Antiques Roadshow on televison - they are private citizens who collect items and never show them to anyone but family and friends. It was very similar to me to think of the show when we were listening to the lecture about the cabinets. I found this very interesting that people did this in the 18th century and we continue the same sort of tradition to this day - most of us today I think begin by collecting family items that mean something to us.

The film was very good. It was fascinating what the artist/photographer did with his work, how he displayed his work. It was very different and hauntingly eerie to look at some of his work in the ways he displayed it - particularly the photos that were displayed in the water.

The project that we watched come together in Manhattan was beautiful. The final product was somewhat sad to me - seeing the residents' own words was interesting that they knew so much of the history of the area; sad as well about what they must have had to live through.

We were asked to consider some questions while watching the film. The first question was regarding what kinds of visual technologies the artist used in his public installations. It was interesting to see that with all the technology at his disposal that he used a slide projector, a film strip; it was only the last project in Manhattan that he used a technology that was more up to date - laser projection. It was actually effective - the use of the film strip to show the film about the holocaust. The technology that he used in that project in Amsterdam was appropriate with the film itself and the images - wasn't too technical, just basic and simple to show something that was very tragic.

It was interesting to see where he showed the materials - on the streets where the parade actually happened, in neighbourhoods. I found his statement about how he didn't want to loose the project that was being shown on buildings - for it to be taken as an advertisement. It was very interesting to see the reactions of the people who stopped to watch.

These technologies allowed Attie to use writing as a process of memory and thought; the use of interviewing people from the Lower East Side; used their actual handwritten materials to project it on the buildings where they lived; memories were laser projected onto the buildings. The memories were projected FROM one person and TO another via the buildings it was on - you could tell in the crowd that people who were watching the written memories lived them too.

It was a fascinating project and he touched a lot of people with the images on the buildings.