Currently, the three floors of the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery in Carnegie Mellon University's Purnell Center for the Arts are filled with three disparate shows.
In the gallery on the second floor, Simone Jones, a Canadian artist and visiting assistant professor of art at Carnegie Mellon, displays three large works - "House," "Chatter" and "Splash." When entering from the elevator, the voluminous "House" greets visitors with a nod. "House" is nothing more than a large, burgundy house-shaped block on a rocking base that begins slowly rocking when triggered via a motion sensor. It is an ominous presentation of a simple idea - a stabile icon on an unstable base.
As one moves further into the space, another sensor sets off a second kinetic piece titled "Chatter." More interesting than the first, "Chatter" is a 24-foot-long piece of driftwood suspended from the ceiling to which the artist has attached 150 mechanical solenoids. The solenoids are wired and programmed to tap on the driftwood in an alternating wave pattern. "The audio wave pattern is intended to be emblematic of water," says Petra Fallaux, director of the gallery, "referring to the actual water that once washed over the driftwood."
Although Jones has been making kinetic works like these since 1989, she has recently ventured into the area of video. And although most video art is usually plodding, Jones' "Splash" delivers. Projected on a large wall, the video is of a serene Canadian lake and promises a few surprises. The vantage point of the lake is as though one is out in the middle of it, almost at eye-level with the surface of the water. The audio of the ebbing and flowing water that surrounds heightens the effect. But the serenity of the lake is not the point, as one soon discovers when the darkened form of a body seemingly falls out of nowhere, disrupting the placid surroundings with a thunderous splash. It leaves one reeling.
The figure never emerges to the surface, leaving the lake to slowly resume its calm until - out of nowhere, and from another angle - again comes another body splashing into the serenity. It can easily be seen as a metaphor for life - moments of calm disrupted by calamity.
Much like Jones' driftwood "Chatter" piece, the installation in the third-floor gallery space utilizes electronic interaction, but in a much more sophisticated way. The piece by Michael Pestel, associate professor of art at Chatham College, and Dutch artist Jeroen van Westen is titled "Birdscape." It consists mainly of a large virtual garden space that is delineated by a pebble-covered floor and various bird-call recordings that emanate from eight speakers mounted at the corners.
When stepping onto the pebbles, the bird calls change, as though disturbed. When one walks around on the pebbled floor, the bird calls react to the change in location. The more people, the more agitated the birds become. This is accomplished through a rather sophisticated computer program that takes digital information from a video camera mounted high above the floor and combines it with prerecorded sounds of 27 different birds.
"What makes "Birdscape" special is the subtlety of its digitally processed interactivity, and the way it reflects the workings of nature," Fallaux says.
The piece originally was presented in the spring at De Pavilijoens, in Almere, the Netherlands, where a glass pavilion allowed for a more cohesive integration between indoor and outdoor space. Here, the artists tried to re-create the effect by attaching angled mirrors to the tops of clerestory windows, much like periscopes. It is a nice footnote to a touching and transcendent piece.
The first-floor gallery contains photographs by photographer William D. Wade in an exhibit titled "Pittsburgh's Spirit." Timed to appear at the same time as the Carnegie Museum of Art's "Dream Street," the incomparable exhibition of photographs of 1950s Pittsburgh by photo-essayist W. Eugene Smith, this exhibit is of 57 photographs that Wade has taken over the past 16 years he has lived in Pittsburgh.
"It's a little bit of a retrospective in one way, but it is mostly geared towards Pittsburgh people and their spirit," Fallaux says.
Wade admits that his project was destined from the beginning to be in the footsteps of Smith's masterpiece on Pittsburgh. The comparisons fall short, however, and only leave one wondering why, in a city with as much depth and breadth as ours, could it not be interpreted in a more personal way?
| Regina Gouger Miller Gallery |
