Thursdays in Boston

Tonight I checked out the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA)'s Target Free Thursdays program. I've been to the ICA once before - oddly enough last winter - and found the museum to be really cool. Set on the waterfront, but rather isolated from public transportation (in comparison to other Boston museums, like the MFA or Science Museum), the ICA is quite striking. However, the museum is deceptively small. Tonight I walked through all the exhibits open to the public and found Krzysztof Wodiczko's ...Out of Here: The Veterans Project fascinating. Wodiczko is interested in representing the war artistically, but also in a real and very raw way. Using video and sound, Wodiczko creates an experiential exhibit in which the viewer bears witness to a battle, but only through sound and the shattering of glass on the barracks window. Not only was the experience of standing in a darkened room while listening to gunshots and soldiers shouting rather transformative, but the other behavior of the other viewers made me curious. In the time I stood in this room, no one moved to the halfway point in the room. Each person contributed to the creation of an imaginary line which others did not cross. It was as if no one wanted to get closer to the wall where it was clear the action indicated by the sound took place. Closer to the wall it was too dangerous, too real. Wodiczko's piece offers time for absorption within the experience and then reflection.

- KER