Moma Assignment

The class last week took a field trip to MOMA (the museum of modern art). There we saw an exhibition called Private Lives, Public Spaces. The exhibit showed us old home movies of people and their families from the last century with only cameras.  Watching these home movies, we saw people in the past living their lives with each person`s being different from the last. It’s like being able to watch your parents explain their childhood through footage of the family history. Home movies are made by the family for the family to come back to at a future time to enjoy with everyone.  Home movies during the time they were shot were the preemie social media.  Back in the day the home movies gave a glimpse into the lives of what people did with their families. Just like with any our popular social media platforms today we can learn about each other through things like these home movies. How do we define and explain “Construct an identity”, through the lenses of values, beliefs, practices, discourses, and knowledge; which call get influenced both by cultural systems and by individual actions.

 The first home movie that I saw was a film called Manhattan Moods by Charles L. Turner American 1915-2005. The filmmaker showed in the cinematic in Manhattan in 1942 America. It’s like looking into a history book and seeing the photos come to life. Seeing Manhattan in the past was awe inspiring and very interesting, the footage defiantly shows but it was a very cool experience. Seeing the progress of our construction since then to present was very cool and put a lot into perspective.

The second movie was Wise Family also by Charles L. Turner. In the film we witnessed six men hanging out while looking at the camera, seeming to enjoy themselves. It’s unclear what the men were doing at the time, but from how the men were dressed you could tell that they were farmers or something close to that. The film was labeled to be from the year 1926. The people in the film seem to enjoying their activity of smoking cigarettes. How does the Wise Family deal with identity? From what Judith Howard says in her article on the Social Psychology of Identities, Class Identities – identities referring to what class you’re in America: Upper, Middle, and Lower. So, for the home film Wise Family, to identify the men in the film to be low class (poor). The reason behind the film being named wise men is an easy way to say that the men were wise beside the point of their income. The men may not enjoy the amount of money they have but they choose to live a life that is meaning surrounded by friends doing the things they love to do.

The third movie is Snow, made in 1973 by Fred Hatt American, born in 1958.  The film is about children having a fun time playing in the snow. With more detail, two children whom we can assume are friends are having a snowball war with one child while throwing snowballs at the other child.  One child fell on the snow and proceeded to ran over the kid over with his sled.  So, to think that the people in the films are expecting to be seen in a particular way by others is a little farfetched. For the audience, No, the people from the films weren’t expected to be seen by others in a certain way because the idea of acting on a home film is a little to narcissistic for the people in the film. Why would a person see anything different? Who is the audience for these films? The audience is someone probably close to the family like other family members or friends who might ask them how their time was at this particular place. The who exhibit just showed us films of people enjoying the fact that they can create memories with an object that can be replayed over and over again. The joy of watching them in the exhibit is to experience the novelty of seeing other families do the same as you. Why do you think the Museum calls this exhibit” Private Lives, Public Spaces?” Simple we are seeing the inner private lives of these people and there families in a public space as a form of artwork.