A Visual Phenomena

review by Heaven Bellamy

3/13/17

Mass Mocha is a museum that puts what lies in the imagination of human beings into real life. There are exhibits that are so massive and full of detail that it inevitably gives its viewer shivers. There are also rooms filled with abstract, visually confusing pieces that viewers puzzled, but nevertheless, amazed. Walking though the massive hallways that used to house industrial work. The contrast of the old mill looking roof and the soft wooden floors to the perfectly uniform looking art is incredible. The most astonishing part of this contrast is that the outside of the mill, and several of the spaces around the art are completely untouched. This effect gives the visual experience almost a historical time warp.

The exhibit that is probably the most amazing is CAKE. It is a hanging chandelier cloud with thousands of objects crowded together on top. The exhibit is high, but there are bright yellow stairs all around the cloud that lead to the top. Every stair case reaches a different angle, leaving the viewer a different visual experience with each climb. The room leading up to this exhibit is extremely overwhelming. It is a path about a football-sized long constructed of lengthy strings of circular dangling fixtures. The large industrial fans running make the fixtures move back and forth on the transparent string, as they reflect off of the light from the long factory windows.

The feeling that some of the more modern looking rooms give off is a “space craft” enlivenment”. There is a joint room with seashells mounted on dehumidifiers of all sizes. As the smoke from each one permeates the air, there is definitely an aroma that is not necessarily pleasant, but defiantly natural and soothing.

Going to Mass Mocha is definitely visually overwhelming in a unique way. It is a modern art museum that is the kind of abstract that will take any viewer by surprise.

  Deflated Illusions

Deflated by Chris Taylor is an exhibit that alludes everyone at first sight. It looks like a normal deflated basketball. However, once the viewers read the caption “blown glass” it becomes clear that this is simply the amazing meticulous work of a very patient artist. Each aspect of this eerily accurate representation of a basketball is an optic rollercoaster. The painting is also extremely believable, and the way that the basketball seeps off of the table only adds to the strangely real deflated basketball.

Who are your Friends?

Are you really my Friend? Is a gallery put together by Tanja Hollanders that has a story unlike any other. It is a five year project that forced her to come to terms with who her actual friends were, and what exactly the term “friend” meant to her. She reached out to the people that she considered she friends and used their donations and hospitality to create a massive gallery with over 600 portraits. It was a commitment that tested her patients through safety, and the condition of moving around. The gallery itself merges into a video that explains her journey, and gives more meaning to the pictures that she photographed.