Hello future friends and family! … Wait, I’m not Spork. Hannah here to give you another dose of exhibited awesomeness. This week JoshuaEvo and I visited the I vs. Godzilla exhibit in San Francisco at the Veterans Media Community Center. And yes, it was just as awesome as it sounds.
It all started out with an innocent tweet directed at our fearless leader here at DRE, the lovely JoshuaEvo. Catherine, the Arts and Culture Writer/Editor and Community Organizer at the center, found him simply by searching “Godzilla” trends on Twitter and his name kept coming up. Shocking, I know. Thus it came about that she shot him a tweet inviting him to the exhibit. He turned to me with shining eyes and asked if we could go. Luckily for him as well as you, dear readers, we already planned to be in San Fran that day on another excursion. When I reminded Joshua of our plans, hype then proceeded to explode out of him like irradiated atomic energy.
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Caution: Splash Zone imminent. First 10 rows WILL get hype.
I will not lead you to believe that we were completely successful in our attempts to find this exhibit at first. In fact, the building the contained this honorific masterpiece was deceptively plain and nearly impossible to locate, even with the help of the always infallible Siri. On the third pass of the building however, our stalwart determination was triumphant. We finally believed Siri when she said we had arrived at our destination. Parking was a whole other story: Only Bay Area Kids Will Understand This.
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Ahhh, San Francisco… The city Godzilla should have REALLY destroyed.
Walking through the doors, we were greeted by the Big G’s own footprints leading us to the correct room. At this point, I won’t lie and tell you that JoshuaEvo’s pants were entirely dry. We entered the exhibition room and into Joshua’s dreams come alive. Twelve Philco Predicta television sets from 1958-59 (fitting, no?) had been lovingly hollowed out and restored with fitted with 21-inch Dell monitors. All monitors had been linked together to run all TWENTY-EIGHT Godzilla movies to date continuously on their resplendently retro screens. The urge to take a knee in deference was overwhelming, but we managed to remain erect.
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Shhh… No words… Only dreams now.
Even I, the self-professed noob in all things Kaiju, was overwhelmed with the concept Pop-Tech project come alive. The artist himself, Rodwin Pabello, greeted us and JoshuaEvo was in heaven as they bantered and tested each other’s depth and breadth of knowledge in the realm of Godzilla fandom. Feeling emboldened by the all-pervasive hype, Joshua asked for a quick interview and Rodwin happily complied. You can listen in on this week’s episode of Incoductic to hear the details and his deep determination to give the giant lizard his due. The grassroots fan revolution and cross-promotion among content creators these days sure is swell.
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Serious, serious business.
But wait, there’s more! Remember the name of the exhibition? I Versus Godzilla. Think about it. Thiiink abooout iiit. Get it yet? Rodwin set up a green screen with a flash technology program to convey your image onto the backdrop of the famous fight with Godzilla in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. The fight scene you star in plays on three TVs simultaneously with a two second delay to help you hold your poses and look extra awesome. You get to choose your size in the fight: you can be the same size as the gigantic Godzilla, smaller than baby Baragon, or bigger than the mighty Mothra. Let that sink in for a second. YOU GET TO FRIGGING FIGHT GODZILLA. Eat your heart out, Kyle.
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You SO wish you were here.
The installation was part of a larger artistic collaboration called the I (Eye) In Media and Godzilla GreenScreen Free Art Show. The point of the project movement, if I understand it correctly, is to show others your perspective on media and make the process interactive rather than the one-sided broadcasting of information we’re familiar with; to mold your media rather than absorb it whole. Rodwin has been in the field of interactive media for over ten years, starting way back in the day with Sega. Rodwin, you’re a bro, and if you’re out there I’d like to say on behalf of media dorks everywhere: Well done, man.
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Lizard fight. Such action. Much punch. Very pain.
–HSLAMMA WILL RESPAWN IN THREE…TWO…ONE…
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
