When’s the last time you were invited to touch in an art museum? To make noisy music? To do rather than observe?
Thanks to the artist collective Lucky Dragons for one of the most enjoyable art memories I’ve made in a while. (If you want to know more, read the bio on their website.) I wish I had more photos to share, but I was too busy having fun to stop and snap too many shots.
Set up in the hangar space next to the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, the Live Sprawl party had various stations where guests could interact with different projects. Adults and children alike seemed to have a blast rubbing rocks, tooting out tunes on recorders, and banging together carob sticks. Sound bizarre? Let me show you.
One of the corners had this motion sensor with a light next to a pile of CDs with rock-like speakers all around. In order to create the psychedelic sounds and reflections on the wall, we had to plop down on the Astroturf and put our ears close to the rocks. There were also bongo drums nearby, encouraging lounging and lingering.
By the wall, under a sign that said Please Take One, was a spread of plastic recorders for visitors to take away. Some avoided eye contact as they nabbed more than one. Others milled around the station and tried to collectively remember how to play the recorder from elementary school memories. An eight-year-old girl taught me how to play “Three Blind Mice.” The instruments made appearances throughout the whole night, most amusingly during an outdoor jam session. All of it perfectly embodied the statement stuck onto the mouthpieces: Harmony is a Process.
And in the center of the room was a huge screen projecting spasm-inducing, moving images on either side. Underneath the projections was another station with carob sticks taped to cables plugged into a soundboard. They were basically amplified noisemakers, and some guests got really into creating ambient noises that filled the whole hangar.
But this was by far my favorite. This big rock was a motion-activated speaker that made pleasant electronic sounds. Stacking rocks on top of it didn’t affect the sound, but people can never resist, can they? Plus look how neat it looks. (This was the rock to rub with one ear pressed right up against it.)
And I was reminded once again why I love MOCA. Approachable art, what a dream.
Fluffy Culture Junkie 