Wrong.
Turns out it's one of my utmost favorite museum experiences ever. It's installation art, so every few months is a new adventure that you can touch and play with. Unlike the Children's Museum, you don't play with toys and figure out your own art, and it doesn't leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling like you might want to change the world. You leave feeling just a little more anxious than you felt when you arrived and maybe more like you just stepped out of a dream. Anxiety could partially be due to the fact that the location of the place is in the middle of what seems to be the ghetto, but the last exhibit could have a huge part of that as well. It leaves you with a lot of questions about the parts you don't consciously think about in everyday events.
Most is too hard to explain. There are four floors. You can touch nearly everything, and most of the "art" is the art that you make it. The strangest being the dark room. We made way down a dark hallway and up a ramp holding onto a rail, with absolutely no visibility. Soon as it leveled off we could feel two chairs and then realized we were on a balcony of sorts. You knew it was a big room from your echoing voice but there was nothing to see or feel other than the two chairs and the railing that kept you from falling. The plan was to sit. In complete darkness. For fifteen minutes. Initially night vision will start to kick in, but there's nothing to see aside from a faint white glow on the wall. Faint as in.. I wouldn't even consider it a light of any sort. It was not something to focus on. After a few minutes night vision starts to blend with what your mind goes into when your eyes are shut.
Personally, I was freaked.
I kept talking to keep my mind from thinking about zombies and murderers and the possibility of the balcony falling. I heard footsteps coming up the ramp until I knew there was someone standing right beside me.
I let the new visitor know that we were on a small platform with two chairs and that the plan was to sit in the darkness to understand what happens when your eyes are shut.
He responds with;
"Huh.. I thought maybe you were the exhibit cause I heard you talking down the hall. But I guess not. ... Well.... This is really creepy now, so I'm not going to stand here to find out what happens. I hope you're not a ghost. Bye."
I hoped he wasn't a ghost. Or a murderer. Or a zombie, as well. And mostly I was hoping that he wouldn't start feeling around and accidentally grab my face. Hence the chatter.
I was officially weirded out after fifteen minutes of the pitch black timeout.
One floor left after that one. Elevator opens in the basement. Old, stone basement. Smells like mildew and death ( that's so dramatic ). You could hear water dripping and moving a little along with some weird vibration noises. Like a hum that would swell and fade off out of any particular rhythm. There are two red painted speakers hanging from the ceiling by wires that visibly vibrate with the sound.
Down another dark hallway you can feel the coolness of water. If you can't see it, your senses really kick in and you some how know exactly how much water is in a room just by the dampness in the air and the sound of it sitting still around you. Strange how it happens but it does. We walk into the room until we bump into a rope preventing us to walk farther. On the other end of the room is an open doorway with a red light coming from it and reflecting off the water. You can hear the vibrations more loudly. There's nothing but the doorway. And a lot of water.
It was creepy for sure.
But it made you feel comfortable. I just wanted to lay down and stare at it for a while and listen to the weird noise.
That was my Donnie Darko moment.
The museum was closing. I wasn't allowed to stay and think about anything more than "How deep is this water?"
Please follow this link to my most favorite room in the building; FAVORITE
It's so much better when you are there and standing in the middle of the wire vines.
And please follow this link to educate yourself farther on the Mattress Factory MUSEUM; MF
They are able to give much more eloquently written descriptions of what I was experiencing. I just ramble from the middle of my brain and hope that somehow my feelings can be translated by words.
These exhibits are here until January 11th. ANYONE that wants to go should let me know. I am more than willing to hold your hand through the scary parts. And then maybe we can talk about what makes water smell weird afterwards.
It's snowing something wicked right now.
I guess winter is here.
My adventures shall continue.
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