We confess to being surprised by this video, one component of a campaign called “I See” for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In it, a bored museum-goer holds an audio guide to his ear and listens while it describes an abstract installation in a way that, while mundane, still struck us as strangely magnetic.
Without any audible change in tone, the audio guide suddenly ties the humiliation of the artist, who debuted his work in 1913, to a recent experience its listener suffered at the office. The voice, markedly female, remains sympathetic but professionally pitch-perfect, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.
Weaving through the warmth of a recent kiss, she ties both the bitter and sublime aspects of the spectator’s life back to the work, which she promises will stimulate all senses at once.
By the time the piece ends, her captive is observing the same sculpture with new eyes. And it seems that our eyes are changed too.
Directed by Azazel Jacobs for agency Taxi, this is part of a new annual series of films by up-and-coming film makers. They’ll appear before screenings at MoMA’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. Creativity Online explores the concept in greater depth.
