1/3 A Museum in Technology: The Museum of the Moving Image

            The Museum of the Moving Image, located in my neighborhood in Astoria, Queens, is so much more than a film repository.  It is a true hybrid museum, highlighting the relationships of media through art, cult popularity, design, and historical context.  It also has a very important focus on personalized creativity.  Visitors can view a screening of a classic film, and then go upstairs to make their own.  They can spin their own Thaumatrope (the flashing card with two alternating images) and then create a series of stop motion videos.  The Museum of the Moving Image makes a point to connect past methods of filmmaking with their modern counterparts, and makes the experience meaningful by empowering visitors to become artists. 

      The Museum of the Moving Image is best known for its exploration of “big screen” film, but it also handles television, computer generated graphics, and video games.  Keeping in line with their interactive mission, their exhibition titled “Arcade Classics: Video Games from the Collection” is a series of playable arcade games.  The information about their technical creation and popularity looms on the wall behind each station.  In “Computer Films of the 1960s”, viewers are met with a composite film of experimental computer illustrations and audio.  Visitors who are more interested in audio can use the sound room to record their own scripts of classic films, and edit the soundtracks or sound effects.  The clips are automatically edited over the appropriate footage on screen, and the results are often humorous.

This playful museum is both exploratory and informative, and they have big plans to expand their reach.  Their online initiative, http://www.livingroomcandidate.org, compiles presidential commercial campaigns since 1952, and it has millions of visitors.  They have an active curriculum for middle and high school students, and an ongoing rotation of screenings and events.  The value of the Museum of the Moving Image is their ability to transform conventional knowledge of moving media.  You may leave the museum with more questions than when you entered.