220,000 square feet of this former factory have been renovated thus far, and that's only 6 of 27 buildings. Its 13 acres of land include vast courtyards, towers, elevated walkways, and a gallery the size of a football field.
The museum extends beyond its walls, into the town. There are billboard artworks, an overpass with music made by passing cars, and an old quarry where a computer-generated composition is played at dusk.
The physical architecture of MASS MoCA is a strange mix of old and new. The site housed the Sprague Electric Company until 1985. (Coincidentally, Sprague made the first device to synchronize sound with moving pictures.) The most decorative elements of the 19th-century building -- red brick walls, floor-to-ceiling windows, mammoth machine parts -- have been retained. These are now joined by shiny aluminum conduits and electrical outlets.
Just as big as the place is the idea behind it. This is open architecture in every sense, with digital production facilities, high-tech theaters, and a fiber optic backbone to all galleries and performance spaces -- fostering an unprecedented level of synergy between digital and traditional arts.
MASS MoCA stretches the very definition of a museum, with performance, animation, film, video and digital art given equal weight to the gargantuan works by such artists as Robert Rauschenberg and Joseph Beuys. Yet, oddly enough, the museum has only one curator, and no endowment with which to establish a permanent collection.
The more technological pieces on view provide a good balance to the big, rough-hewn galleries, and also demonstrate the collaborative spirit of the place. Tony Oursler's "Optics" (which accompanies a mid-career retrospective at the nearby Williams College Art Museum), combines large-scale projections with sculptural elements. The video was produced with Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company, a high-end digital effects company and one of MASS MoCA's first commercial tenants (see page x).
Another collaboration is "Ghostcatching," a video created by digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar, with choreographer Bill T. J ones. It premiered last year in New York, but has since been expanded and refined for MASS MoCA.
Brett McDowell, the museum's Director of Technical and Media Services, calls the museum a "technology-safe zone" for traditional artists and a collaborative campus for digital artists. A "Media Mill" will include digital video, audio, and motion capture facilities. Another computer lab has digital cameras, scanners, and a 155Mbps ATM network to each desktop, and MASS MoCA is working to expand the high bandwidth capability of the region.
Missing are traditional art studios, but an artists' center just up the street has another old factory building full of them. Such is the creative critical mass that is converging here, with the nearby Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and Williamstown theater both thriving.
And MASS MoCA is pulling in many others, quickly filling up its rental space with new technology companies. " Suddenly we've got six or seven companies, some of which are growing quite rapidly," says MASS MoCA's director, Joseph Thompson. "There's not a lot of office space in Williamstown or Adams. But we happen to have a lot of very beautiful buildings here. It's pretty easy and cheap for companies who need plug-and-play buildings."
A large restaurant is also proposed, and Thompson isn't ruling out retail stores, but he is banking on the transformation of all of North Adams into a travel destination. He also doesn't want to alienate the local community, many of whom were put out of work when Sprague closed. Thus the museum offers free computer access and training, helping the town transition from manufacturing to high-tech. And the institution is discovering talented local craftsmen as well as high-tech itinerants.
The museum faces many challenges in converting its potential into kinetic energy. It launched with a core staff of only 40. Its initial exhibition is called "Test Site" -- a conscious attempt to determine what works in the vast spaces. While the art is big and immersive, it is difficult for many to appreciate; it alone won't draw big crowds. Fortunately, the first season was filled with compelling perfornances, film premieres, lectures, and dance parties.
Energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. MASS MoCA, a self-described "supercollider for the arts," has both the mass and the light-speed technology, and with proper direction, it could fuse together analog and digital, thereby creating new forms of artistic energy.
