{"id":4235,"date":"2012-05-18T08:04:02","date_gmt":"2012-05-18T14:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=4235"},"modified":"2012-05-18T08:04:02","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T14:04:02","slug":"sound-visions-experiences-during-a-self-guided-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/05\/18\/sound-visions-experiences-during-a-self-guided-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound & Visions: Experiences During a Self-Guided Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nBy Adrienne Yeung<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like many of you, my daily commute includes a walk past the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art<\/a>. One day a sign for their current exhibit caught my eye. Sound + Visions: Crossroads<\/em> (curated by Anthony Kiendl) manages to link not only aural and visual art, but historical events and the present, \u00a0personal experiences and public exhibition. 11 pieces take various aspects of music and sound and allow you to look at them dissected, connected, transformed. This is my experience, below.<\/p>\n

I walk into Plug In\u2019s dark gallery, and into a video of convulsive dancing projected onto a screen. This is Tarantism <\/em>(2007), by Joachim Koester<\/a>. Without sound or colour, the action is reduced to frantic movement with no obvious stimulus or point. It reminds me somehow of how a picture of laughter can often be mistaken for sadness. I suddenly realize I feel extremely isolated – the absence of music takes away my immediate understanding of what the people are moving to. An explanation from the curatorial assistant reveals that this is a re-enactment of the Italian Tarantella<\/em> dance, which was believed to prevent the fatal effect of a tarantula bite. This is hard to stop watching even when the seams of finish and beginning join up.<\/p>\n

Next, I wander over to the jerky collage cut-out, vaguely surrealist video of a man, played in reverse – Orpheus Groove<\/em> (2012). (It was somewhat anticlimactic that the speakers were missing when I went). But apparently you can actually walk through the screen into Winnipeg artist Kevin Ei-Ichi DeForest<\/a>\u2019s work, and be physically enveloped by screen and the sound of be-bop jazz.<\/p>\n

Hello Boys<\/em> by Hannah Wilke<\/a> (1975) stands in stark contrast to Tarantism<\/em> simply because it\u2019s so personal and expressive. It\u2019s a video of a woman dancing behind a fish tank (before 1996\u2019s Romeo and Juliet<\/em> rediscovered the appeal of the aquatic) to the Who\u2019s Quadrophenia<\/em>. A turtle crawls by. The woman\u2019s masses of hair flow as if in water. Headphones on, and the gentle music shuts me off from the world.<\/p>\n

I sit down for Cory Arcangel<\/a>\u2019s pieces Insecticide<\/em> (2002-2003) – which is cute – and The \u00a0Message my Brother Jason Left Me on My Cell from the Slayer Concert He Went to Last Week <\/em>(2004). They both make me laugh. I listen to six of seven boring answering machine messages get deleted. The last is a grinding, muffled, squeaking pocket call. It\u2019s funny and thought-provoking how the context of an art gallery enables celebration of the textures that would normally get deleted.<\/p>\n

Jennifer West<\/a>\u2019s films Led Zeppelin Alchemy Film <\/em>(2007) and Nirvana Alchemy Film <\/em>(2007) look at first like cellular processes, on acid. It\u2019s amazing to know that it\u2019s actually film gone through treatment with food, laxatives, and various chemicals. This dances across the walls in intense hues. I like thinking of how these videos are being fed with human needs and processes, and then it reminds me of the reverse. Like when you can feel sound waves vibrating through your body, and almost become a human harp, surprised you didn\u2019t start making music.<\/p>\n

[At this point, I failed to realise that the noises coming from behind the black door in the main gallery were part of another art piece in the other room. So go ahead and open that door!]<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s something odd about the Guitar Hero<\/em> setup (Composition #7<\/em>, Cory Arcangel, 2009). If you\u2019re good at the game you\u2019ll probably find out what it is much sooner than I did.<\/p>\n

Rotary Psycho-Opticon<\/em> (Rodney Graham<\/a>, 2008) is a literal reference to a 1970 Black Sabbath music video. A bicycle mounted behind a printed wall powers a spinning disc, which is visible through holes one. Get the person at the front desk to jump on the bike for you, because interactive art is a fun time. The effect is pretty neat, although I wouldn\u2019t have made the connection between history, music, and visuals without \u00a0having seen the music video (there\u2019s no sound accompanying this piece).<\/p>\n

Rock My Religion<\/em> (Dan Graham<\/a>, 1982-84) draws connections between religion and the modern idolatry of musicians. This short documentary is worth a watch. You certainly don\u2019t learn about Shakers in history class.<\/p>\n

Dreamachine<\/em> (Brion Gysin and Ian Summerville, 1960) is a piece that creates an environment I\u2019d like to go back to over and over again. Experiencing it is truly like being cocooned in the eye of a storm. The sign on the wall suggests optimal viewing occurs with eyes closed. I leaned back on some pillows and it was like driving through a backlit forest. Or zooming through space. Try it!<\/p>\n

The ideas in this article do not necessarily reflect the intention of the artists. The exhibit runs until June 17, 2012, and admission is free of charge.<\/em>
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By Adrienne Yeung Like many of you, my daily commute includes a walk past the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art. One day a sign for their current exhibit caught my eye. Sound + Visions: Crossroads (curated by Anthony Kiendl) manages to link not only aural and visual art, but historical events and the present, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,646,741],"class_list":["post-4235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-art","tag-music","tag-plug-in-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}