Event 3: Technology and the Moving Image

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While I was visiting New York this quarter, I decided to take a trip out to Queens to visit a museum I'd been meaning to see for a long time: The Museum of the Moving Image. Across it's three floors are numerous technologically-based exhibits that display the essential inventions that furthered art across two different media: movies and video games.
Glass Slides for Projection

One interesting innovation required in the early days of movie making was the glass slide, which could be used by a theater to inform the audience on rules, show advertisements, and entertain while reels for the movie were changed.
Musical Selection Overlaid on a Scene

In addition, the moving picture art form was heavily influenced by advances in film technology: when better lighting, cameras, and recording methods were invented, acting changed considerably. Early movies have very unrealistic acting in order to make up for low frame rates, a lack of sound, and a lack of color. Larger-than-life expressions and movements were a staple of early acting but, as technology advanced, audiences expected acting to become more and more realistic. An interactive exhibit at the museum allowed me to play different sound tracks over a scene from Casino, showcasing the importance that the invention of audible movies had on the art form.

PowerPad for NES
For video games, technology meant increasing the possible ways a participant could interact. The PowerPad for the NES allowed us to actually run and jump in order to play various olympic sports in low resolution. This would foreshadow the advent of more interactive gaming, like the Kinect for XBox and now virtual reality systems like Oculus and Vive, which allow a player to be immersed directly into the video game. I highly recommend this exhibit to any Desma 9 students living in or visiting New York City, since it had numerous interactive exhibits that really helped solidify the significance of each salient technological advancement.

Truly, the rapid advancement of electronics in the 20th century have allowed greater immersion for and greater connection between audiences and each art form.

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