Gallery Review (I wasn't in NYC, so this is from Rochester, NY)

Holly Knapp
The Apostacy Exhibition at Rochester Contemporary, artist Michael Bosworth

Michael Bosworth created an exhibition of installation pieces combining new media and historical imaging technologies. The artist’s intent is to make the viewer question current and past notions of the “imaged experience.”
I found the exhibition intruiging but highly confusing. Large balloon-like cloth forms hung from the ceiling with various blurry images of photographs of a face and glasses, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was supposed to know who this person was and I did not. There were also shadow images on the wall of human silhouettes interacting upside-down. I thought that this would be more effective if the viewer did not have to walk in front of the projector, thereby disrupting the image, to get to the other pieces.
The most captivating part was piece in the back of the small gallery. It was simply a video loop projected on a sheet. The sheet was blowing from a fan placed behind it. The images on it were of a boat swaying on the water and a man swimming underwater, and the movement of the screen really helped you feel the motion of the image. The video itself of the man underwater was very interesting because of the camera angles and his facial expressions.
I was highly confused by the whole experience, however. Before attending the exhibition, I had read on the gallery site that it was an interactive media piece where visitors to the artist’s website could interact with the audience at the gallery. Maybe it was the time of day or that the exhibition was not very publicized, but I felt very alone in the exhibition. A statement from the website was apparently supposed to be played when I entered the exhibition, but there was only silence. This defeats the purpose of the interactive part of the experience because the interaction is based on people editing the website’s wiki statement to interact with the audience. There was no explanation of what the pieces were about which would have really helped me because the images were blurry and unrecognizable. I couldn’t really get anything out of this experience besides confusion.
Although I’ve never seen these large-scale balloon figures with projections inside, they didn’t highly impress me. They reminded me of large Chinese lanterns. They were interesting, but they didn’t really jump out as being amazingly unique. Although I liked the projection on the sheet, that is also not unique, especially since you could see the fan and projector behind it, taking away any sense of wonder that the viewer might have. The most interesting and unique piece in my opinion was a pillar hanging from the ceiling. There was about 3 feet of space under it, and when you crawled under, there was a projected image of a skateboarder on the bottom. This is the only piece that really made me want to interact with it, and it also made me think about space since the skateboarder was airborne and I was viewing it from below. This was the most innovative and the most effective piece in the installation.
I left the gallery feeling pretty disappointed. I had brought a friend with me, and I felt compelled to apologize for the experience. I would not recommend visiting this exhibition.