Museum of Sensory and Movement Experiences

By Robert Bernstein

The Museum of Sensory and Movement Experiences is the latest creation of local scientist, engineer and artist Marco Pinter. We were privileged to have a special VIP tour by Marco and I am delighted to share my videos and photos of that experience here.

The Museum of Sensory and Movement Experiences is abbreviated to MSME and is pronounced “Miss Me”.

MSME is conveniently located in La Cumbre Plaza near the Center for Creative Arts galleries that I reviewed last year. Here Marco greeted us at the entrance to MSME

Most of the exhibits are interactive, but most do not involve physical contact. So, the Museum is COVID safe. Gloves are worn for anything that involves touching.

When we arrived we were fortunate to meet Sean O’Brien who is one of the artistic creators. Here he posed with some of his pen and ink designs and his Pintograph machine that created them. “Driven by motors. No Programming” is how he describes the machine and the process.

Not all of the art pieces are motorized or interactive. Elisa Ortega Montilla collects discarded fabric and other cast off items and creates art from them. You can see one of her pieces from outside the museum in a display window. Here Marco posed with another one of her pieces:

Deja Vu is a kinetic art piece by David C Roy that can be observed from outside the museum. David C Roy studied physics, engineering and chemistry and also benefited from the artistic influence of his wife Marji. Amazingly, this intricate piece is powered by a constant spring force clockwork mechanism:

We then entered the heart of the museum and the interactive fun began!

Fluid Connections is one of Marco’s many creations that combine art, science and technology for a delightful interactive experience. To fully experience this piece you want to come with a friend. As you and your companion move around the room you will see your avatars on the screen extend out into space and join together. My wife Merlie and I indeed experienced a special tingle during that joining.

Time Dilation is another Marco Pinter interactive piece. It is a bit harder to describe and must be experienced. Essentially you are interacting with three copies of yourself at different times.

Celestial Inflections combines the genius of Marco and the wonders of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Specifically, the famously awesome Hubble Deep Field image is used as the substrate. As you move, a rather ethereal version of you distorts the space time continuum of this image.

Unraveled is yet another Marco Pinter creation that must be experienced with a companion. Each of you is transformed into a stick figure which is impressive enough. But then each of you is disassembled and scattered and reassembled in various forms. At times you will find half of each figure is controlled by you and the other half by your friend.

Video Organism by Ethan Turpin is one of my favorites. You may recognize this from the Museum of Contemporary Art and some other previous display venues around town. This ever-changing interactive experience uses no computers, yet it is very dynamic and complex in its behavior. It is all done with video feedback. If you don’t know what that means, think of audio feedback. Now imagine doing that with a video camera and a projector!

HeartSpace by Dave Zaboski, Alan Macy, Alex Stahl, Dominique Reboul and Garrett Staab is a variation of an assortment of mind-expanding creations of Alan Macy that you may have seen around town. Like Marco, Alan Macy straddles the worlds of science, technology and art by picking up body energies and manifesting them in the physical world. Real body energies, not the woo-woo type. In this case, your heart beat is turned into beautiful visualizations that will transfix you and in turn feed back to your own body rhythms and sensations.

Oscilla By Xindi Kang and Rodney Duplessis is another visualization of body processes. This one takes your voice or other sounds and creates something akin to a Lissajous pattern. Marco demonstrated it and then I tried my voice with it:

But wait! There is more! Thermal Gestures shows how our bodies affect our immediate environment in ways that are normally invisible. Marco makes them visible through thermal imaging and a delicate fabric screen. Here Marco and Merlie demonstrate the effect:

I am very grateful that we were able to experience all of this and that Marco allowed me to share it with you. But videos and photos are just an introduction. You have to come over to MSME for yourself to experience the interactive creations for yourself.

Here is more information about each of the art pieces as well as more information about the Museum and how and when to visit: https://seehearmove.com/artworks/