21c

If you ever find yourself in Louisville, KY, I highly recommend the 21c hotel - part hotel, part museum and probably the coolest place I've stayed the night, other than the $8/night room Don and I splurged on in Coba, Mexico.

I traveled there for a workshop for an exhibit we are bringing to the museum in Summer 2011. The exhibit was good, the city was nice but I never wanted to leave the hotel. So with the brief spare time I had, I spent it lingering there. And you'll see why.

First of all, you know you are in a swank hotel when they sell the soaps in your bathroom for $10/bar in the gift shop.And they are almost worth it.

Mint Juleps anyone?Never been to a hotel with an ipod before. It was preprogrammed with more music than one could listen to in a lifetime. If I had another day I think I would have spent it listening to all the cool music I had never heard before.But really, the true mark of a 5 star stay? A rubber duckie in your tub.As you can see, it took a lot to just get me to leave my room. My travel mate was tired of my picture snapping and threatened to throw me and my camera out the window if we didn't vamonos. She had no idea that for me, the fun had just begun. Each floor had a different chandelier. Mine was a funky scissor design.You needed a room key to use the elevator for the hotel but the main lobby was open to the public.There was quite a bit to see so I will leave you with the piece that made the biggest impression on me.This photo series was taken by Adriaan Van der Ploeg in Holland, Belgium and China. The artist tracked down On-Line-Game-Commuties and asked young gamers to pull away from their computers just long enough to take a picture of them just out of "battle." These online, multiplayer games (Call of Duty, World Warcraft, and a World War II game) set in a fantasy world are played by youth continuously for days and often mimic or exaggerate real world violence.

The gamers disconnected gaze, bloodshot eyes, chapped lips, pale skin are captured in razor-sharp clarity.From the caption: "Van der Ploeg's photographs capture a rarely seen perspective of the gaming industry, displaying everyday reality and revealing his models as caricatures of themselves. Online, these boys transmute themselves into muscle-bound heroes with magic powers. Offline, the photos series documents a mass media generation, dominated by young men.

As a whole, the series alludes to a phenomenon of popular culture with over 7 million users worldwide that does not discriminate by age, class or culture. The seemingly youthful portrayal of Van der Ploeg's subjects is an ironic juxtaposition to the violent and addictive nature of the online gaming community."

Whoa. I had no clue. After chatting with some colleagues, I learned more. Apparently there have been several news reports about all this that I have missed... such as the one about the Kansas couple who was taken into custody for starving their child because they could not stop playing.

And on a lighter note...

Ahhhh, art.

Unfortunately, the weather was absolutely gorgeous so I did venture outside.

21c is covered in red penguins... even at the tippy top. And see the sign that reads "Proof?" That is the bar, where a shot of scotch (or something like that... this info was relayed to me by another workshop goer) will cost you $20. So while my first suggestion is to stay at 21c, my second suggestion is to have someone else pay for it.Louisville Slugger Museum. I didn't go in, no time (or particular interest).To kill time while waiting for a cab I had more fun with this setup than I probably should have.It was between the elevators.There was some projector in the wall that could detect movement so as you passed by or held out your arm or moved any part of your body, the continuously falling letters would get held up or bumped up. Sometimes they spelled sentences and other times it was random letters falling.You can see the sensor here (the black dot).I just re-read my explanation and realized I didn't do a very good job of explaining. Another reason you need to go to the 21c.