Looking at Music

Through Jan 5, 2009, New York's MoMA has a small exhibit called Looking at Music.

While in NY to research a documentary subject, I took time to see Looking at Music, and I particularly enjoyed a piece by Laurie Anderson. It was a violin that played continuously through use of a pre-recorded track of an actual violin and the track was housed inside the violin object on display. For me, it was an artist's attempt to create a present continuous tense of something ephemeral (sound) and also at the same time, an object of sound embodied. Anderson is a visual artist and a musician, and in the violin piece, I enjoyed how one art form influenced another. For me, the violin piece is playful, meditative, and a great representation of interdisciplinary experimentation in media art. The exhibit as a whole reminded me of the outcomes artists find through collaboration and experimentation.

Here is detailed exhibit information from the museum's website: This exhibition looks at the dynamic connections that occurred from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s with a display of early media works by Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Steve Reich, Joan Jonas, Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, and David Bowie presented alongside related drawings, prints, and photographs by John Cage, Jack Smith, Ray Johnson, and others.