Carl Baldwin is the Curator of Digital Media at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, and he is also among the leading strategists for the Museum. We were treated to an hour conversation with Carl following our tour, and when it found its finish we could not imagine a smarter or more thoughtful talk on the philosophy of museology. Carl began by introducing us to the museum, and in short order he segued into discoursing wisely and passionately about how museums think about themselves, their mission, and their audiences.
It's clear that the strategic plan at the Museum of the Moving Image is pegged at the highest level of aspiration, and the execution of the place shows it. We were all delighted with the wealth of interactive learning environments that were ingenious enough to satisify college media majors as well as younger audiences. We made and printed flip books as a way of understanding the persistence of vision. 
We recorded animations. We voice-dubbed [ADR, or automated dialogue replacement] ourselves into "Babe." At the end, we spilled into a huge bank of vintage video game consoles that included some killer Japanese interactive games none of us had seen before.
Our tour leader had been a film major in college and is currently active in the industry, so she was sharp and privy to the lingo of cinema studies. The tour was over 90 minutes, so we really saw a lot. We could easily have stayed for hours longer, and we're unanimous in recommending the museum to anyone visiting Manhattan. While it may look a long way on the map, it's just an additional 15 minutes on the subway, and easy to find.
The illustration above doesn't really capture the museum, but it's a sentimental favorite. The camera is the same model [not the exact same camera] used by Dziga Vertov to shoot "Man With A Movie Camera," one of the God-films for cinema history and nonfiction students. We could easily imagine climbing to the top of a building in Leningrad in the mid-1920's and cranking away with this beauty.
After that, it was off for an afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art, which is resplendent in is new building.
not that anybody would care that much, but the soundtrack for "man with a movie camera" has recently been redone by the cinematic orchestra, an english band on the ninja tune label. it is just about one of my favorite albums in the world and i haven't even seen the movie.
Posted by: adam | September 28, 2006 at 09:25 PM