Created 5 years ago by School of the Art Institute of Chicago kids, Art on Track is the largest mobile art gallery in the world. It takes a 6-car CTA train and transforms each car into an art gallery, most of which are interactive. In 2009, one of the cars was entirely plastered in bubble wrap, which had it sounding like a popcorn popper with all the people in it. This year included a car transformed into a life size Lite Brite, a fairly creepy 19th century curiosity exhibit featuring eerily lifelike animals, as well as an improv show.
By the time my friends and I boarded the train, it was 9:00, so we had only an hour to experience everything this train had to offer. At that point in the night it was so crowded there was barely room to get on some of the train cars but we were able to see all of them and some were much more fun than others.
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| We started by jumping on the car with the giant Lite Brite. People were hogging it but it was more interesting to look at than to actually interact with so we stood in the corner near another exhibit: A woman dressed up as a Girl Scout telling scary stories around a "campfire" with a flashlight turned toward her face. |
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| The 'Cabinets of Wonder' was a bizarre display of disembodied animal heads and other curiosities meant to mimic the cabinet of curiosities of Renaissance Europe, which were collections of objects yet to be defined. These collections were similar to modern day museums. |
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| This car featured a collaboration between the Chicago Design Museum and Architectural Artifacts, taking "local, historical typography from its original context," and turning it into an interactive experience with its audience. |
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| Most of the riders had one-track minds and spelled a lot of dirty words. I, on the other hand, created the word 'mod,' mostly because those were the only letters I had to choose from. |
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| The last car on the train featured performances by the improv troupe, The Waltzing Mechanics, and their now 2 years old show, EL Stories. This was my favorite car by far because it put the EL Stories (which can be seen at the Greenhouse Theater in Lincoln Park on Saturdays) into context. Actors from the troupe recount their most hilarious, most sordid, and most memorable experiences while riding the El. I have quite a few stories myself that I could add. |
