MOMA

The demonstration titled Unfinished Conversation by John Akomfrah was a unique experience . When seeing a film, one would commonly watch it through one screen with audio synced to that one visual. Akomfrah’s exhibit, displayed “the life and work of the cultural theorist Stuart Hall,” through three separate screens. At first, I thought that the concept was too much, for my mind to absorb and focus on. As I continued to watch, the three screens were actually complementary to the narrative than distracting. One thing, that really impressed me was the audio aspect of the demonstration. Because the visuals are on three separate screens, the viewer can choose to look at each screen separately or together, according to preference. Audio however, is not something you can pick and choose to listen to. The sound person, did a great job of mixing all the levels of sound to fit together as one piece. There was a point in the film, where there was a singer, while the narrator spoke of an incident. On the other screens were visuals of the relevant topics, including an airplane scene. This sequence seemed easy to make a jumble of, and yet it wasn’t. The narrator’s voice was clear, the singer flowed nicely in the background, with airplane foley on the side. Another thing that I admired, was how Akomfrah didn’t feel the need to fill every screen. There were times where nothing was on a screen and let the viewer breathe. The ending credits were also nicely done. The titles of the participants were in the middle screen, while the names of those people were displayed on opposite sides of the screen. This was an aesthetically clean, and different way to display the credits.