And now for something completely different.

When I was on my little mini-vacation to Virginia, by far the coolest thing I got to see aside from the aircraft carrier with all the fighter jets on deck for parade as we were landing in Norfolk, was the Peninsula Fine Arts Center. It's a small gallery that only had 2 main exhibits and a third exhibit lining the hallway between the gift shop and the restrooms. The main exhibit was on strobe-flash photography, which was neat, but, I saw it more as applied science than fine art. Studies on the effects of a bullet passing through balloons, or the human body in motion. The secondary exhibit, which had one piece, "The Scream" in a darkened alcove immediately inside the front entrance, then two more such kinetic sculptures in the back in a larger darkened room. The sculptures were all by Gregory Barsamian, and if you've never heard of him, I highly recommend following that link to his website. It has some cool flash movies of several of his sculptures, including "The Scream", but not the other two that were at the PFAC. Make sure you have pop-up blocking software disabled when you go to his sight, you won't get any advertisements, I promise. ;)

How his sculptures work is... well, described on his sight. Basically he uses a specifically timed strobe to create 3D animation. The sculptures are right in front of you, you can feel the breeze they put off as they spin at high rpm. If it wasn't for little glow-in-the-dark ropes that keep you about 4 feet away from them, I probably would've broken one reaching out to touch it. They're very mesmerising, as he claims, they kind of put you in a surreal dream state where the laws of physics shatter and everything you know of the world hides away in the back of your mind.

I'm sad that his other two PFAC exhibit sculptures aren't on his website. One was cute, a series of postcards depicting bizaare and macabre things, like people falling into the grand canyon and New York city being enveloped in a mushroom cloud. The other was so cool and powerful I can barely recall how it actually was, so, let me try to seperate my impressions from my actual memories. A 4 foot or so tall madona stood transfixed and unmoving while a pair of hands opened a book which flapped and flew away from the hands as they opened it. Above the Marian figure's head disembodied hands caught the book and tore it to shreds. I think. Between the heat and humidity and overwhelming sensory input I can't remember correctly. If you're ever in the south-eastern corner of Virginia, definitely head to Newport News and take in the PFAC, on the mainland side of the rivers of Hampton Roads it's the only thing worth seeing. That I was taken to see at least. I really wanted to go to the beach and get some fresh crab cakes, but, what can ya do? I should've gotten a rental car. ^_^