Apr 25 23
The gallery’s reception area was situated at the center of a long-ish, white hallway; as such, there didn’t seem any choice but to walk up to it.
Because of the distance (about twenty feet) and that they were partially obscured by a monitor, we couldn’t easily make out the person seated.
As we got closer the receptionist’s movements seemed off. It was only when we came right up on them did we see that it wasn’t a person, but a kind of animated mannequin.
It was dressed in a plain dark grey suit with a plain/crisp white shirt; a matte black wig slightly askew on the head. The “skin” was like chalk, save for the cheeks and lips — on which were crudely applied pale red smears.
The head jerkily angled up towards us. From somewhere in the “mouth” it rasped out “I’ll be with you in one second” — the eyes rolling unrelatedly. Then the head went back to facing the monitor saying “I forgot my password.” After which, it started to “type.”
The arms, locked at the elbows, alternated up and down slamming its hands into a black keyboard with violent clumsiness. When it finally stopped, we noticed that most of the mannequin’s fingers were broken and many of the keyboard buttons had been smashed off.
There were no explanations anywhere. No wall text. No printed material.
After a loaded, fairly long silence, the primitive automaton twisted to the right knocking some sort of box off the wall. A dial tone filled the space, then, ringing. A voice that we can only describe as a worried, lisping clown answered. “Hello?! Who ith thith?! I’m very bithy!” The receptionist’s voice lowered “Someone’s here to see you.”
A shaky reply “I’ll be out in a minth! Keep your thirt on!”
We almost protested but felt silly — though we were getting slightly worried and a bit unnerved by the whole thing.
As we turned to go, a pocket door we hadn’t seen opened to our left. Out of the darkness rolled a standard ghost-looking type thing. It was about 5 feet tall — opaque white sheet over a vaguely human form — we could see little tank-like treads where shoes or feet “should have” been. It rolled and creaked over to us, closer than we were comfortable with. We stepped back.
Under the sheet its “head” tilted very slightly, like it was sizing us up.
“You like trombonths? Beautiful inthruments but hard to play in a clotheth though — if you catch my drifth!”
It was all getting to be too much.
A noise from the entrance made us turn. A security gate started to descend in front of the doors.
Without thinking we ran towards the front and in one motion opened the glass doors and rolled under the gate with only the littlest of clearance.
We got up and kind of speed walked, not stopping until we got to the 14th street station entrance.
Because of the distance (about twenty feet) and that they were partially obscured by a monitor, we couldn’t easily make out the person seated.
As we got closer the receptionist’s movements seemed off. It was only when we came right up on them did we see that it wasn’t a person, but a kind of animated mannequin.
It was dressed in a plain dark grey suit with a plain/crisp white shirt; a matte black wig slightly askew on the head. The “skin” was like chalk, save for the cheeks and lips — on which were crudely applied pale red smears.
The head jerkily angled up towards us. From somewhere in the “mouth” it rasped out “I’ll be with you in one second” — the eyes rolling unrelatedly. Then the head went back to facing the monitor saying “I forgot my password.” After which, it started to “type.”
The arms, locked at the elbows, alternated up and down slamming its hands into a black keyboard with violent clumsiness. When it finally stopped, we noticed that most of the mannequin’s fingers were broken and many of the keyboard buttons had been smashed off.
There were no explanations anywhere. No wall text. No printed material.
After a loaded, fairly long silence, the primitive automaton twisted to the right knocking some sort of box off the wall. A dial tone filled the space, then, ringing. A voice that we can only describe as a worried, lisping clown answered. “Hello?! Who ith thith?! I’m very bithy!” The receptionist’s voice lowered “Someone’s here to see you.”
A shaky reply “I’ll be out in a minth! Keep your thirt on!”
We almost protested but felt silly — though we were getting slightly worried and a bit unnerved by the whole thing.
As we turned to go, a pocket door we hadn’t seen opened to our left. Out of the darkness rolled a standard ghost-looking type thing. It was about 5 feet tall — opaque white sheet over a vaguely human form — we could see little tank-like treads where shoes or feet “should have” been. It rolled and creaked over to us, closer than we were comfortable with. We stepped back.
Under the sheet its “head” tilted very slightly, like it was sizing us up.
“You like trombonths? Beautiful inthruments but hard to play in a clotheth though — if you catch my drifth!”
It was all getting to be too much.
A noise from the entrance made us turn. A security gate started to descend in front of the doors.
Without thinking we ran towards the front and in one motion opened the glass doors and rolled under the gate with only the littlest of clearance.
We got up and kind of speed walked, not stopping until we got to the 14th street station entrance.