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Robert Kimberly's Page
Profile Information
- Hometown:
- A Tiny Place Far Away From Here
- Relationship Status:
- Married
- About Me:
- I'm a Houston-based freelance art installer/stagehand. I like earning a living by helping artists and art institutions. I've also installed lighting systems on cruiseships, ground-rigged for concerts, and built sets.
Mainly, I slack off and take pictures.
- Website:
- http://neonpoisoning.blogspot.com/
Robert Kimberly's Blog
Another Online Outpost
Hi all,
I blog at Neon Poisoning and I post pictures on Flickr. Most recent art related picture are of the Kirsten Hassenfeld show at Rice U. Gallery. Really nice show, the pictures don't don't do the show justice.
I blog at Neon Poisoning and I post pictures on Flickr. Most recent art related picture are of the Kirsten Hassenfeld show at Rice U. Gallery. Really nice show, the pictures don't don't do the show justice.
Posted on October 4, 2007 at 4:24pm —
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Vegas is a laboratory for technology and visual manipulation. From the latest in specialized lighting systems to mad, crazed architecture, the city is a playground for experimentation and
spectacle in pursuit of profit.
My favorite Vegas museum is the Atomic Testing Museum, which has full-scale recreations of testing tunnels, a bunker that recreates the sights, sounds and air blast of a bomb explosion, and large installations of actual test site materials, equipment and buildings. To me, it emulates the themed-casino look but with the goal of impressing the visitor with the scale and seriousness of the test site's mission, material culture and history. It is also proof of what a museum can look like when one has defense contractors as patrons of the arts. Highly recommended.
What shaped my Vegas thinking was a really well-written article about the city in a magazine I can not recall now. It talked of the three historical-phases of the city.
Phase 1) The western-cowboy town, where the casinos were modeled after saloons and had western motifs. All appropriate for a desert city in the American west.
Phase 2) Themed casinos. Steve Wynn started it with the Mirage. Castle casino, New York City casino, stylized Egyptian casino, Paris casino, etc... None of these have anything to do with the desert and everything to do with complete sensory immersion. Create the illusion, free of outside context, and allow nothing to intrude.
Phase 3) Adult playland. Some Vegas casinos tried to to be family-friendly, like the MGM with its theme park rides and attractions. The park has been leveled and condo towers now rise up in its place. Themes have gone away and their place "sophisticated, modern design" that will age better and not suffer the curse of cheesiness (see the Excalibur Casino for a style that has not aged well). It is this phase that has seen the takeover of Cirque de Sole on the Vegas Strip. Every casino looks to Cirque as a lesson on how to make art and money. All the more interesting in that the tastes of the average Vegas tourist would not be considered avant garde.
I also love the small, homey, not-kid-appropriate Burlesque Hall of Fame...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rkimberly/tags/burlesquehalloffame/
All of this stays with me as I look at other cities I live in, and as I imagine my dream house. Houston has a similar quality of untethered imagination, but in an individual scale. The Orange Show, Beer Can House, Flower Man house, art cars. Different scale, but a like-minded pursuit of imagination without restraint.
That's why I like the city so much.