Allegheny College Sound Show
Hey, Listen, Here!
“OPEN SOUND CONTROL”
at Allegheny College
An Art Review
Through different artists’ interpretations, a current show at Allegheny College challenges viewers to reexamine what sound is and how sound can control and be controlled.
OPEN SOUND CONTROL features artists representing three different schools: Allegheny College, Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, all with unique visions of what exactly sound is.
Acccording to gallery signage:
“OPEN SOUND CONTROL is a diverse collection of moving sculptures, interactive installations and visual representations that explore the complex relationship between sound and control. Sound can exert control by compelling people to be together, act together, coordinate. Sound can be controlled by action, movements and physical mechanisms. Sound can dictate what we see and feel, but what we see and feel can change our perception of sound. The tension between what sound is – invisible and ephemeral – and what makes sound – the physical and tangible – highlights the ironically materiality of sound and sound experiences.”
Okay, I’ll admit it: Some art within the show had this reviewer scratching his head for its meaning, yet Julie Zhu’s “Ornithology,” seemed to only offer joy.
(Sorry, readers, no illustrations for Ornithology or any other art this time. My phone crashed with all the images on it and when I returned to get more photos, the gallery was closed—during gallery hours. An email to the Allegheny representative whose name is on the gallery door for contact info, was not returned by “press time.”)
Through this interactive installation visitors get to use their own artistic talents while adding to Zhu’s creation. Instructions are simple: “Draw the imaginary bird outside your window. Listen.” A 4’ x 6’ board is hanged from a wall. Next to it, a tray of colored pencils. As one does their best to create their own version of a bird with colored pencil in hand, the board itself “tweets,” producing a happy bird call as long as someone continues to draw.
Alish Chhetri [sic] and Emily Graber’s contribution is “Shadow Piano.” Here, a piano’s black and white keys and their accompanying hammers are affixed to a white wall. Above it, a video camera monitors its visitors. A person’s movements (walking, stomping, running in place), mimic the sounds of an actual piano keyboard. Though I’m unsure the artists’ intent was to create something entertaining, it nevertheless reminded me of the movie, “Big,” where Tom Hanks plays on “The Walking Piano” in the department store.
Grace Needlman’s “Year 74” is an odd concoction of wood, paper towels, thermoplastic, glue, house paint and more that culminates in the creation of an odd, supine piece. Perhaps 18” in length, it appears to depict two people lying on a bed, their faces and bodies almost mummified, covered with a sickly yellow-brown translucent sheet. From the sculpture emanates an audio loop of low volume-hard-to-discern grating sounds (People snoring?) that only adds mystery and fascination to this creation.
John Granzow’s “Joint” is a two-piece artwork. One piece, a fiber construction resembling a sound horn from an old gramophone sits in a corner of the gallery; the other portion, sits in the middle of the exhibit. Its parts listed as “motor assembly, 3D printing, radio,” the motor and its turning gears allow to create a potentially everyday sound: the slow crushing of an ordinary plastic water bottle. Amplified within the gallery, the sound first shocks visitors with its cacophonic noise; although it’s not much better when one understands where the unpleasant sound emanates from, either.
For me, OPEN SOUND CONTROL made its point.
Departing the exhibit that offered up different sounds at different volumes some entertaining, some grating, I became more aware of sound—or the lack of it—as I left the gallery and wandered through Allegheny’s silent student union on a Saturday afternoon. Outside, students were talking, walking together, people on electric bikes drove by, even the rustling of the leaves on the trees. All seemed right.
Then I started my car. With holes in the exhaust system.
***G. Greenleaf
Open Sound Control continues through November 13. For more information visit alleghenyartgalleries.com