films at the ICA...

Don't know for certain what the screening venue is like (above is the architect's rendering of a theater space in the museum, can't tell from the site content if it's also their movie theater), but the listings have got a few things to keep an eye on. Coming up in January, they've got a "preview" screening of PAN'S LABYRINTH, and I hafta admit, I haven't seen THE MATRIX on the big screen in a While now... Maybe I'll try and rally some people for that. =)

My sister and her posse got to the ICA in the early afternoon yesterday to find a long line of people waiting to get in, with an announced estimated three-and-a-half hour wait to actually set foot inside. There were some tents set up around the edifice featuring ICA activities and whatnot, but not enough to keep them around for that long. So, they carommed off the museum over to the Aquarium instead.

I did a bit of clicking about online to find out more about the museum and the film venue there, but couldn't find any photos from the opening and no explicit naming of the auditorium shown above (the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater) serving as the movie theater. Seems like a pretty basic piece of info to (not) include at the site. Looking at the images of that theater, I imagine a screen could be dropped easily enough from above, or suspended on the far wall. I think I read that curtains over the windows (aMAZing views depicted in all the photos and renderings I *did* find—check out the media room, reportedly full of Apples =) that could be drawn to provide various levels of natural light and transparency. I was hoping to find that the windows were all actually LCDs. Hrmm... maybe they don't work so well for outside walls? New England temps and all.


Ever since I first read about liquid crystal "smart" windows way back when—probably in some WIRED or architectural tome featuring dot-com spaces—I've wanted to have some of my very own. Instead of plain old glass, replace the floor-to-ceiling windows around your office or conference room with panels that are actually giant single or multiple pixel LCDs, y'know, like the hexagons that together display numbers on your calculator. When no current is running thru them, they are transparent glass. When they are switched on, the windows become opaque. Or is it the other way around? Either way, pretty nifty.

Keep on keepin on~