Oh dear. It's been a while. I've been neglecting my blog to go gallivant in the wilderness with some rather cool people (an entirely blissful, deep, and indescribably brilliant experience - I feel a bit like Gandhi right now, except less skeletal). Before said blissful, deep, and indescribably brilliant experience, I went to Washington D.C. to show a European pseudo-relation the wonders of my adopted country. While of course showcasing the quite impressive might of the American government (every Federal Bureau, Department, Institute, Association and the like has a stone-facaded office in D.C., really driving home the point that this country's government does lots), the capital is also a haven of museums. I love museums. Really. I like the concept of a museum. I like its atmosphere, its venerability, everything. I'd been to most of the D.C. museums, having lived there before, but there was a new one for me - the Hirshhorn. The Hirshhorn is the artsy modernist weird museum. It's D.C's MoMA. The installations are excellent, and for a short period of time right now the museum has an exhibit called the Cinema Effect.
The Cinema Effect is indescribable. (Don't you hate that word? Whenever someone is at a loss for words (ehm, Buddhists, I'm looking at you), they just stick on "indescribable" and consider the affair wrapped up. Maddening.) It's an exhibit meant to convey the wonder of cinema. I didn't see all of it, because I spent almost all my time in one room watching Isaac Julien's 2005 documentary Fantôme Créole which showed simultaneously the scenery of Scandinavia and Burkina Faso. No words, just images and some background noise. One one screen there would be the dusty streets of the cities of Burkina Faso and advertisements for Coca Cola in French, and on the other a northern polar wasteland. The characters (random people with no lines) would merge from one screen to the other. The camerawork was magnificent and did a good job of highlighting the entire point of the exhibition, which was about how the art of cinema seduces the viewer into believing that the screen is reality. While of course the screen is constructed, the detail makes the film very true to life while at the same time being larger than life. You seem to be transported to the shot while knowing it's not real.
It's funny where you can find meaning. This weekend, I found meaning in the fake reality of the Cinema Effect, but I also found meaning in the exeperiences of being a camp counselor to small girls and driving on the highway under a red moon listening to David Bowie. I yearn for more of these.
