Best Fact-Finding Visit

So, the New Museum has this new exhibit called "Experience" by a fellow named Carsten Holler.  The centerpiece of this exhibit, the thing that has New York all worked up, is a 102' long twisting slide that runs through the museum from the fourth floor to the second floor.  Thursday night was free night so what better night to go, right?

(This is a blueprint poster of the slide.  I bet you anything you can buy this poster)

Well, turns out the slide was closed for "maintenance" for the evening.  Wow.  What a coincidence.  Free night and we can't all ride the slide?  Guess I'll come back some other time and pay to ride.  (that's what the museum people hoped I thought)

But if the slide weren't closed, this would be where the giant line to put on a helmet (rolls eyes) and start your ride would be.

And here's the slide snaking through the third floor.

And here's where the slide spits you out on the second floor.  Why can't you see anything?  Because the walls are lined with flashign fluorescent tubes.  I still have a headache from it.  Really, it was unholy, and I didn't see any epilepsy warnings anywhere.  Helmets everywhere to protect you if you go down a slide but no warning that the second floor will give anyone and everyone a nauseating splitting headache.  It made me lose my appetite.

It was a lot of work but I eventually got a picture where the lights were off for a second.

But there was other stuff of Holler's that you could see/experience.  Like looking at bird cages.  With real, chirping birds inside.

Or waiting in line to go on this super-slow Merry Go Round (imagine a Merry Go Round that is not moving at all and then slow it down a little more and you've just about imagined the speed of this ride's rotation) and then deciding it's not worth it and not riding.

(Hmmm . . . I think I promised to post this picture?  A promise I'm quite happy to keep.  That's Kelley there and then that's Aubrey over there)

And a tunnel to walk through.

There were also goggles you could wear that made everything be upside down and a mysterious enclosed tank that I think you walked around naked in and got all wet?  DON'T QUOTE ME ON THAT!  I just know people would go into it and later come out all wet, but their clothes were dry.

In conclusion . . . I left the exhibit three and a half hours ago and I still have this headache from the second floor.  But also, I am curious about that slide.  So probably I'll be back and probably the New Museum will get $12 from me.