Tales from The Social Club: A Museum in Motion
- Shane Holmes
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, September 30, 2025 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Meeting Location: Mercer Labs Museum of Art and Technology, 21 Dey Street, New York, NY 10007
Website Link: https://www.mercerlabs.com/
This museum was one of the strangest places I have ever visited, with the exception of the entrance lobby and the gift shop prior to the exit. When I first walked in, one of my friends suggested I put on my noise cancelling headphones due to the high volume of the music and I kept them on for the whole visit. I found the museum difficult to understand and hard to describe. The kind of museum I like has displays with facts clearly describing the exhibit to help understand what we are seeing. This museum didn't have much of that leaving the interpretation of many exhibits to the imagination.
In the lobby entrance, the only clue we were offered about what the museum is about was the explanation below that describes a museum that is immersive with surround sound and "embraces a diverse range of mediums – painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and experimental art" with the goal of creating "a groundbreaking exploration of the boundaries of permanence, authorship, and memory." I am not a 100 percent certain what that means but the takeaway is it is unique.
As we entered the exhibit area and worked our way through, I noticed that surround sound covered most of the museum, changing as you go, except for the entrance lobby and exit at the gift shop which consisted of typical background music from a speaker.
In some exhibits, digital displays were projected onto the floor and walls – and in a few exhibits the images we saw were not static but in motion.
Description on What the Museum Displayed
One of the first places we went was a massive room with an extremely high ceiling. The room was mostly dark with four swings near each corner and different animations on the floor. My favorite projection made it seem like the floor was full of ocean water. The picture below shows one corner of the room and the corner's ceiling. The images on the walls are animations which constantly change.
Below is a picture of a Social Club member swinging. I also rode the swing myself which was a fun experience. What made this swing different from most swings was it had a cable connecting it to the floor. This cable kept the swinger from going too far away from the center and/or swinging too high as well as reduce the probability of the swinger colliding into another person.
The picture below illustrates water and the keys of a piano on the floor of the room, a strange combination indeed. I found this to be very fascinating as this is a combination that does not exist in the real world and people avoid such combination because the ocean would destroy the piano. This image on the floor of the room changes over time.
The image below shows waves on the wall as well the massive size of the room. We got this view by going one floor up in the museum. That's right! The height of this room covered multiple floors. This view is from an entirely different room on the second floor. You could see this through a window. The lack of people is because the museum was not admitting new guests. We were the last group admitted for the day.
Also on the second floor was a room with a table. On the table was an oval circle I could move just by the push of my hand.
The museum had animal sculptures on display. The first was a Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur.
Another animal on display was a tiger. In the background of this room is a digital exhibition with floral display.
My favorite part of the museum was the ball pit. I rode down a slide into the balls. The room was dark which makes it different from some of the other ball pits I have visited at other museums.
The surroundings resembling waves on water and moonlight.
Another interesting display was a violin whose bow movement was automatically controlled by a machine or by a visitor's cell phone using a QR code.
We ended our visit at the gift shop where there were a variety of things on sale such as books, rubber balls, food and beverages, hats, and shirts to name a few examples.
The image below is of the museum gift shop. Note slightly left of center in the foreground of this picture is a container used to hold black shoe covers. We were required to wear these shoe covers to protect the floor of the museum since the floors were used to project images, to prevent the spread of bacteria, and for slip resistance.
For people looking for a museum experience that is unique in a comparison to other museums, this museum would be a good place to go for an adventure not like other places. For those with sound and light sensitivities, this might not be a place you would want to visit as it has loud music and flashing light displays.
