Going Behind the Curtain

Location: Modern art museums the whole world over

All the time

Adventure #16

With trepidation married with mild curiosity, I part the curtain and skulk inside. The lights are dimmed in the stark white room, and one wall doubles as viewing screen that hosts a looped film with a haunting heart pulsating soundtrack that transport visitors to a tense Hitchcock scene or morose calming melodies that invoke a feeling of floating in a placid pond. If there are voices, they are distorted or eerily whispered. Together, the universal site makes up what I consider the most bizarre fixture of the modern art scene: video installations.

A stable medium of the contemporary avante-garde, video projects are used to recapture important world events or creatively convey a variety of lofty emotions. Recently, I have seem multiple video critiques of capitalism including one about famous Hungarian billionaire George Soros, or another that featured a group of female secretaries singing Abba’s “Money, Money, Money” in a frighteningly catchy round. Other pieces depicted the first Russian rocket launch or environmental degradation of a national European park.

Judging by their intrinsic subjects, these videos could be informative and creative; however, I just find the gallery viewing experience so creepy. From the mysterious soundtracks to the dim, uninviting rooms in which they are broadcast, I hate going to see them. Just once, I’d like to see a positive-themed colorful video work with a soundtrack including anything uplifting, from Stevie Wonder to the Beastie Boys - any siren song that draws me to the exhibit rather than makes me leery enough to keep my distance. If the current generation of artists can inject canvases and photographs with poignant and often humorous subjects, why can’t this talent be transferred to the silver screen? Perhaps I haven’t seen enough of the medium...

However, having to review videos for work has given me inspiration in a peculiar way. I am plotting a murder mystery novel set in an art museum. The crime would have to be committed in a screening room, where the throbbing soundtrack of a film would mask any sounds of a crime or struggle, and should there be any witnesses, it would appear as if it’s part of the show … If this idea transpires into an actual endeavor, never fear, I won’t try and make an artistic video about it.