Something and Nothing

Maybe I'm just looking for a reason to write or maybe an exhibit actually got me....

Beyond knowing that Charles Allis had a factory in Milwaukee and was an art collector, I don't know much.  The mansion, Charles' home for seven years turned library turned museum and historic site, housed a variety of displays - some his, some not. Though his life was brief within these walls, one exhibit trapped him in this time, this place.

His bedroom was dark. The shades drawn on an already cloudy day. Musty as old houses always are. 100 years of smell in one place. A simple, minimally furnished room. The bed. The fireplace. A few steps to the center of the room and I realize there isn't much to look at. In my periphery I catch a change in light within the attached bathroom behind me. I spin. All seems normal. Again, I take to the center of the room and look towards the mantel. It's hardly seconds before I sense movement again in the same place there was nothing. I can feel it behind me. This room is not about what's there, rather what's not. He's here. He never left.

Startled. A crashing tin sounds the empty room. Loud. The sound rings bigger than the room itself. It's behind me again. And I spin to nothing again. No matter where I am there is something and nothing behind me. The sounds bring me to a derelict factory. Perhaps, Charles own plant devastated by modernity. Run down and forgotten as most factories exist today. Between the echoes of clanging metal, in the silence I hear the machines waiting for life.

He's here and he's bothered by what has come of his livelihood. His ghost has seen today. His ghost has brought today to this room. It haunts him while he haunts me. There's a draw to the bathroom tub and I can't help but feel like he died there. I feel like I could die there. Swallowed by the past. My chest is a little tight and reality seems far away.

It doesn't take long to put the exhibit together. Built-in surround system with localized sound effects. The bathroom light mocked by a projector behind frosted glass creating subtle and sudden changes in the environment. Just enough to make you second guess your sanity. Even knowing that though - I had a moment of being caught in the whispers of the past and the promise of an afterlife, and it kinda creeped me out.

More info: Charles Allis Art Museum