Photos by Jen Maler
By Andrew Parks
One of the most striking things about last night’s “Transverse Temporal Gyrus” performance had nothing to do with Danny Perez‘s depths-of-hell visuals or Animal Collective‘s patient, plodding performance piece. It was the fact that tons of college kids showed up to a major art museum with streaks of paint across their face, as if it was time to play Cowboys and Indians or something.
“A consensus of the mind drew us all together, you see,” explained Samson, a student from Columbia University. “We all just showed up here and said, ‘Okay, let’s begin.'”
Begin what, you ask? How about hooting and hollering like a flock of wide-eyed owls, and treating the main floor the way it was intended–as a playground for art-damaged misfits.
“I came here thinking it’d be like the [videos I saw] of them before,” said Samson, an Animal Collective fan who chose to see them for the first time…at an art exhibit. “So it kinda annoyed me at first, because I wanted to move–I wanted to dance around, you know? But now I’m a lot more into it, a lot more relaxed and going with the flow.”
So you’re not bored?
“No, you should ask the more hedge fund-y people here about that. I’ve been screaming at them all night–right in their faces.”
And do they get angry at all?
“Yes! They’re like, ‘Who are you!'”
And with that, one of Samson’s new found friends, a girl named Rachel from New York’s New School, chimed in: “You’ve gotten channel that negative energy, though.”
Indeed.
