motion picture house / kid a mnesia exhibition

From what I understand, Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood originally conceived the Radiohead video game (Kid A Mnesia Exhibition) as a real exhibition like this, but the pandemic prevented that from happening, so they developed the game instead. I'm so glad they finally did the in-person Exhibition. It was so cool! This incorporated a pair of albums of theirs from the early 2000s (Kid A and Amnesiac), with the music and the associated artwork, into a cohesive, immersive experience in the band's dystopian mindset at the time of recording the albums. The first thing inside was a bar. Who cares? The Exhibition started down a hallway with a crying minotaur beckoning you in. Then there was the TV room. Two walls of vintage TV montitors of varying sizes, accentuated with old VCRs and related paraphernalia. The TVs displayed all kinds of Radiohead videos. Not music videos, but random artistic stuff. One could have spent the whole ticketed time (about 2 hours) just watching those. But there was more to see, including the film. So, onward and upward.

The Exhibition also incorporated huge reproductions of some of Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke's paintings and other illustrations. I had seen many of these originals in person last fall at their huge exhibit at a proper museum in Oxford, so this aspect of the Exhibition was less impressive to me than perhaps to other fans. Still, it was good to get one in the mood. Plus, there were life-size (and larger-than-life-size) statues related to the characters in the film that would be shown later.

There was a pair of long hallways leading to the next room, which were plastered with reproductions of drawings, handwritten and typed song lyrics, and notes sent between Thom and Stanley, who are longtime artistic collaborators and the genius team behind all of Radiohead's imagery. These reproductions were too numerous to photograph, and are available to read in fancy books, so I didn't focus on those too much. (A side note, I was thrilled to run into and experience the rest of the Exhibition with an old queueing buddy and prominent Radiohead fan; you know who you are. It was so good to see you again.)

Then came something big. Really big. I am not a fantastic judge of size, but I'd estimate this statue as about three stories tall. You can judge for yourself. It was surrounded by more large-scale reproductions of relevant art from the period. Mr. Giant Statue had a few friends too. Smaller friends, weeping minotaurs and stick figures spaced here and there. Whether they were saddened by the artwork or their own isolation, one may never know...

Then it was time for the film. Could I have spent longer in the Exhibition? Yes. Did guests receive that option? No. Unless you went twice, as my buddy did. Anyway... the film itself was a little over an hour and what can I say? It was magnificent. Moving. Emotional. Superb audio mix of some of Radiohead's finest songs. I did not take photos during the film. However, there was a boy of about seven who appeared to record the entire thing on his cell phone. It was a communal experience sitting on random structures or the floor surrounded by four giant movie screens. The film itself was not just a "play-through" of the video game. It was animated, no dialogue or narration, but it had more to say than most things one can see in a theatre. It spoke of isolation, loneliness, and solitude; searching for meaning among chaos; finally finding someone like you; and ending your adventure through strange lands, transformed. It became apparent that the Exhibition portion was to immerse you as if you were the main character of the film. It was directed by Radiohead fan Sean Evans (deadskinboy) and the audio was of course mixed by the incomparable Nigel Godrich, producer of the majority of Radiohead's albums so far. Please lordy, let that remain "so far". Surely there is more music to come in years ahead despite it being ten years since their most recent album! One can hope!

Lest you leave empty-handed (literally, for the heart had a handful with the film), there was a gift shop at the end. I had to blaze through to have a very fancy birthday dinner in Manhattan, but couldn't leave without a couple of Radiohead things. They also had T-shirts, LPs, art prints from the film, and other collectible type souvenirs.   

Hey, if you enjoy this type of post, and/or if you are a fan of Radiohead, you might enjoy the page I made about my crazy transatlantic trip to visit the massive Stanley Donwood/Thom Yorke art exhibit in Oxford last year, where I got to meet Stanley himself: This Is What You Get.