Wood, And Other Mediums

A few weeks back, I came across information on an installation Italian artist Marco Brambilla had produced for the new Standard Hotel in Manhattan. The commission is a mosaic of seamlessly stitched-together video clips depicting an ascent from Hell to Heaven. As you can see in the aforelinked information, the movie is spellbinding. It’s played on a high-def monitor in each of the hotel’s elevators, thereby enabling people to look at something pretty as they rise from the Hell of the lobby to the Heaven of the roofdeck. Or something. ALL I KNOW is that I was all sorts of hyped to get over and see this puppy.

When I finally had the chance to do so earlier this week, I was even more sorts of disappointed. The screens in each elevator, though crystal clear, are much smaller than the now-legendary information makes it seem, and the music is very faint, and that combo makes the entire project very underwhelming. FURTHERMORE, when I took a ride from the lobby to the 17th floor (as shown above, in a clip with precious little reason for existing), the movie barely made it out of Hell. Those newfangled elevators are too fast for their own good. IN SUMMATION, watch the video on that information page everyone keeps talking about, don’t bother checking it out at the hotel, and hey now, Brambilla directed Demolition Man.