The Singapore National Museum recently opened after being shut for renovations for some time. The exhibition that we went down to see was called ‘Maria Theresia: Mother Empress of Habsburg Austria’.
Below is a shot of the basement space outside the gallery where the exhibition was held. I can’t really say much about the exhibition except that I have got a lot of knowledge which I probably can use at a trivia competition, and the portraits were really detailed.
Was going to go for Barcamp Singapore after visiting the musuem, so was carrying my laptop. Fortunately, the museum had free lockers to store my bag.
The 1st floor had a really big video installation. Basically, a camera would track you and display you on the wall. Not something super new as it has been done before but still…
The thing that really impressed me was this gadget that was used for the History Gallery. The device is called the ‘Companion’ and is attached to headphones which you wear. When you are moving around the Gallery, you can key in numbers which are correlated to the exhibits and get audio commentary. This device is also able to sync the audio with the video exhibits. Hmm… I just realised I didn’t notice if it had commentary in other languages.
The coolest exhibit to me was this room which was one big video installation. When you first enter the History Gallery, you see a bridge across this cylindrical room which was about three stories high. The wall was covered with screens which was displaying a video about a day in Singapore. The accompanying score was really catchy and inspiring. Hmmm… but then again, I’m the kind of person who likes Celine Dion songs so maybe my taste in music shouldn’t be trusted. The whole exhibit was a visual and aural assault on the senses which built up the anticipation for the rest of the exhibits in the History Gallery.
The shot below shows the room when you first step onto the bridge.
The shot below is from the ground floor of the space. The horizontal thing in the middle of the shot is the bridge.
Some black and white shots of us at the museum.
The thing is, I am a philistine, so I can’t really comment on a lot of things that I saw. They all just look so pretty… and it was just a great way to spend time with a loved one.
Olivia | 25-Jan-07 at 3:44 pm | Permalink
man!!! that’s super cool! i wanna go too!! okay.. stoopid question: must we pay to go in?
iantimothy | 26-Jan-07 at 12:29 am | Permalink
Hey Olivia…Yes, you need to pay to enter. But students have a discount so a ticket to explore the whole musuem is $7.50. If you pay the full rate, its $18 for adults. Painful… But I think its worth it if you spend the whole day there.