Off the Path Travel Photos: Digital Van Gogh and Monet in Nottingham

I’m taking a little detour from my path (the last post).

Because if I kept to my path and my promise, this week I’d be posting travel photos from Mareil-Marly and Paris, France.

However,

at the moment, I’m in Nottingham, England.

Not in Sherwood Forest where I was heading to see Robin Hood and his Merry Men,

but rather at… the Motorpoint Arena.

Past the refrigerated ice hockey rink, into the intestinal bowels of a gigantic sports stadium….

…where I’ve randomly discovered..

Two digital/video art installations. One, “Beyond Van Gogh”. The other, “Beyond Monet”.

Now some of you, I know, have seen stuff like this before: big video art installations of famous painters’ work.

Still, hang in there with me.

I’m taking this detour because I genuinely found these two shows to be so exciting, so kinetic, so immersive, experiential, and thrilling that - I’m taking my time here… to bring you along with me.

So please, don’t just rush through this post. Find some time for it. Take your time with it.

Have a glass of wine, a little absinthe, or your favorite mind-expanding psychedelic/recreational drug (which I didn’t, but wish I had).

You’ll be going to your first “Substack museum”… but in overdrive. Where you’ll be able to see the minute brushstrokes of Van Gogh and Monet. Not just stand in some high-falutin’ gallery and merely contemplate “art”. But rather, you’ll hopefully be swept up - in the sound, in the movement, in the scale of a hundred square yards of… indoor-stadium, moving art.

As usual, I recommend that you view the post in the Substack App - so you can see the individual images, rather than nine at a time in a “gallery” on a browser. Plus, on this one, you also have the choice of which device to view the post on: either a small phone where you can turn the image from vertical to horizontal and pause the videos… or on as big a screen as you have, so you get as close to museum and stadium scale as possible. I suggest an iPad if you have one.

Let’s begin…

Let’s begin with Van Gogh.

We enter… and read some written educational information.

I step out of line to slow down and start capturing photos.

We enter the first room.

It’s about 50 feet square, with huge ceilings, befitting a midcity sports stadium.

The small crowd is standing in front of the video screen, about 30 feet from it, watching.

But there is a huge chunk of carpet in front of the screen, far larger than the standing “gallery” space.

What’s it for?

Duh.

I walk forward, take off my backpack, my shoulder wallet, put them on the floor on top of one another as a pillow, and I… lie down.

I hear the crunch of my potato “crisps” under my head.

I stare at the screen and don’t move for an hour.

In front of me is a swirling, stylized video presentation, based on the motifs of Van Gogh’s paintings.

Click on “Fullscreen”:

Honestly, it seems like I spend over half of this entire trip - on my back.

No kidding.

If I’m not sitting at my laptop writing, or out walking around a new town, I swear, I’m on my back.

So today… is no exception.

It feels good. I don’t want to move. I do some old dance stretches.

Time is meaningless. Be here now.

Finally, after an hour, a Staff member comes up to me.

Excuse me, sir. You’re fine here but…

Uh oh, she’s gonna ask me to get up and move my ass out of the way.

I just want you to know that there is another room right through those doors past the screen, and it’s much, much bigger. Most of the museum audience is there, sir.

Hah! Joke’s on me!

I get up, a little dizzy and faint from low blood pressure, and I… proceed. Down the Yellow Brick Road.

Room 2:

Wow!

The room must be 100 feet by 400.

And look,

We, the People, are part of the humongous show.

Look at these 3 photos side by side.

I love the way the images, almost the same, are “peopled”.

Which ones are Van Gogh’s? Which ones are us?

The video images are even projected on the floor and on our bodies.

Look at the way all these paintings below are “peopled”.

And watch the way the video images and my camera move together.

Click on Fullscreen.

There are multiple levels to the images: Van Gogh’s brilliance, the video artist’s sequenced digital images, and my improvisation effort to capture what I’m seeing.

There’s even Miles Davis, almost a century ahead of his time.

Fullscreen, babies.

Here’s another gallery, full of self-portraits and… a red sneaker.

Room 3.

A View from the Bridge…..

Full screen:

Don’t worry, I have video releases from all the people “peopled”.

Well…now for Monet.

Just kidding!

I’ll save him for the next post.

No doubt, you’ve had enough!

Please let me know if you enjoyed it and felt that it was as immersive as I’ve hoped it would be.

Yours in art,

Trules

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