From the old samurai residence to Kanazawa’s Museum of Contemporary Art was a twenty minute walk. The museum is a low round building of shaded glass.
Inside, individual artworks are given dimly lit spaces the size of a banquet hall, so there’s plenty of time to circle the pieces you admire as you peer through the darkness. Whether it’s intended or not, it does make one more worshipful.
One of the dark rooms has a ceiling lined with tiny light bulbs that blink in time to your pulse after you clamp your hands on two grips. But the central interactive exhibit is one that has you enter a swimming pool from below.
The pool is empty but illuminated with a wavy blue light. From the bottom we could look up through a glass surface at people staring down into the pool. It’s like sinking in water without getting wet.
From above, we could wonder at all those people milling around in what appears to be water with their clothes.
To shoot a pool scene in a movie the Screen Actors Guild requires at least two fire department medics to be on hand paid overtime as well as hiring an underwater camera operator with a leakproof rig that has a lens which doesn’t distort. I couldn’t help but think that a line producer could save money on the underwater shots with the kind of setup they have at the museum.