Becoming Robot Exhibition Reaction

The “Becoming Robot” exhibit at Asia Society was a very interesting display of Nam June Paik’s life and incredible contributions to video technology. The first thing you see in the exhibit is a robot that Paik built than can walk, talk and actually defecate. The rest of the exhibit explains other contributions that Paik made to video technology. Among his other impressive accomplishments was his “Family” of Robots, where he built robots with TV screens and actually developed a family of robots, including a Father, Mother and Child. This was a very entertaining exhibition because, even though technology has advanced far beyond Paik, his accomplishments are still amazing and meaningful. Without his contributions it is likely that video technology would have taken a longer time to develop into what it is today and the popularity likely would not have reached the same levels. This is definitely an exhibition worth seeing in order to see how far technology has come and how far ahead of his time Paik was.

Zero Tolerance Exhibition Reaction

The “Zero Tolerance” exhibit at MOMA PS1 was the best museum exhibition I have ever been to. It kept you engaged throughout with entertaining and vivid photographs or videos. I thought the videos were particularly appealing because they showed the emotion that the protesters felt. I did not know about many of these protests before visiting the exhibit, but they did a great job of explaining each situation and why the individuals were protesting. This exhibit really interested me because of what is currently going on in Ferguson, Missouri. When we visited the museum, the decision had not come down on whether Officer Wilson would be indicted or not, but I knew that no matter what the decision was there would be significant protests and possibly riots. I thought something the exhibit should have touched on or would have been nice to see, especially with the situation in Ferguson, would have been the differences between protests and riots. One thing that makes the situation so sad in Ferguson is the fact that many of the gathering have not been peaceful, but instead have been violent riots, resulting in damage to businesses and people that are unrelated to the Michael Brown shooting. Many of the incidents throughout “Zero Tolerance” involved peaceful protests with the traditional signs and rallies, but they did include riots or incidences that included violence. However, they did not discuss, which forms were more successful, which I think would have been interesting.