Museum of Modern Arts (Private Lives, Public Spaces)

Last Friday in class we took a trip to the Museum of Modern Arts (MOMA). There we saw an art show called Private Lives, Public Spaces. The exhibit showed old home movies that people made from the last century using only film cameras.  Watching these home movies, I see people in the past capture moments and events in a person’s life is incredible. It’s like archival footage of the family history. Home movies are basically cinema to a family so that they can come together to watch and enjoy their movies.  Home movies back in the day is like social media.  Back in the day the home movies showed everything about a person when they grew up and the moments in their life. Just Like Facebook live, Snapchat and Instagram stories we see everything about person’s life and what they’re doing. But what is the meaning to “Construct an identity”, the shaping of a person’s values, beliefs, practices, discourses, and knowledge; influenced both by cultural systems and by individual actions.

 The first home movie I came across was a film called Manhattan Moods by Charles L. Turner American 1915-2005. The filmmaker showed in the film is moods in Manhattan in 1942 America. It’s like archival footage for a time long past. Seeing Manhattan in the past and looking at it now is breathtaking, also seeing some things change, but some can stand the test of time. As a photographer/videographer, I see the shots and feel like I’m transported to 1942. Seeing the buildings that wasn’t built back then but are here now is amazing.

The second movie was Wise Family also by Charles L. Turner. While watching the film, I saw six men hanging out while looking at the camera, smiling. I don't know what these men were doing, but from looking at how they dressed, they looked like farmworkers. I saw the information label that the film was filmed in 1926. The subjects in the film appeared to be happy while laughing and smoking cigarettes. How does the Wise Family deal with identity? According to Judith Howard’s article on the Social Psychology of Identities, she talks about Class Identities – identities referring to what class you’re in America: Upper, Middle, and Lower. So, for the home film Wise Family, we can identify that the men in the film are low class (poor). I think that is why the film is titled Wise Family because these men are poor and wise with each other given the set of circumstances they're in. They're not happy about being poor, so the best they can do is to always look at the bright side of things in life. We can get a sense that these men will be fine, despite them being poor. 

The third movie is Snow, made in 1973 by Fred Hatt American, born in 1958.  The movie is about kids having fun playing in the snow. In more detail, the film has two friends having a snowball war with one kid while hitting the other kid with a snowball.  He fell on the snow and ran over the kid over with his sled.  So, do I think that people in the home movies expected to be seen in a certain way by others? For me No, the people from the home movies wasn’t expected to be seen by others in a certain way because everyone has home movies, that’s their life. Why would a person see anything different? Who is the audience for these films? For people who love home movies, like filmmakers, videographers or maybe just the general public. The exhibit showed old home movies that people made from the last century using only film cameras.  Watching these home movies see people in the past capture moments and events in a person life is incredible. It’s like archival footage for the family history. Home movies are basically cinema because to a family they can come together to watch the home movies like a cinema to enjoy. Why do you think the Museum calls this exhibit” Private Lives, Public Spaces?” Because these are home movies that are private in a public space, which is a Museum.