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For next-gen ISU artists, the canvas becomes video screen and sound
'Test Pattern Sound Check' first large exhibit by arts tech program
By Steve Arney
sarney@pantagraph.com

A viewer watches an exhibit during the open house of "Test Pattern Sound Check" earlier this month at University Galleries at Illinois State University in Normal. (The Pantagraph/STEVE ARNEY)
NORMAL -- The art installation “Asphyxiation” is an anxiety-producing blend of sound, visuals and drama. The viewer sits in the darkened room, about the size of a bedroom. Video streams are displayed on a screen showing the producer Mariana Malanconi posed as a traumatized person. | Video: Exhibit's opening

To the side of the screen is a 5-foot-tall box. Its spandex walls are used to project a video of the artist.

To the visitor, it appears as if someone is trapped inside this box — they see shadows against the spandex — the way Malanconi feels trapped by society.

A narrator’s voice says, “Why am I here? I’m suffocating. I’m vulnerable. Asphyxiated. I can’t breathe. I can’t find my home. I lost my identity.” The spoken words of narrator Chad Brekke are overlaid with the sound of a female’s anxious breathing, her faint crying and her continued whispering of words in Portuguese.

There is a futuristic feel to the installation, and others in a new art show at Illinois State University.

But “Asphyxiation” still is an artist self-portrait. A graduate student from Brazil, Malanconi describes herself as a nonconformist who has struggled with pressures of United States society during the past year and a half.

“Asphyxiation” is one of a dozen works by 18 artists on display at University Galleries at Illinois State University through Sept. 12 in a show called “Test Pattern Sound Check.”

“Test Pattern Sound Check” marks the first large-scale exhibit by ISU’s arts technology program, consuming the main gallery and all three smaller spaces at University Galleries. The arts technology program, started in 2000, teaches students visual arts, music, theater, history of visual and performing arts and digital overlays of the arts.

Program director Shari Zeck thinks of the creations coming out of the program as “new combinations” and “re-combinations” of the arts, rather than as a new art form.

“The Dadaists in the ’20s were experimenting across media,” Zeck noted. “The surrealists were interested in synthesis. I think those are related conceptually. All art forms have their technologies.”

Science and technology commonly become themes of the art projects.

The centerpiece of “Test Pattern Sound Check” is “The Sunshine Underground,” an installation by two graduate students, Kasey Wells and Kate Riegle-van West, with contributions from undergraduate Ben Chaykin.

Through music, video and sensory experience, and through voices of scientists blending with synthesized chords, “The Sunshine Underground” beckons visitors to experience connectivity with the universe. (See accompanying story.)

Nearby, “Code As a Pillar” is a sculpture by Christopher B. Smith. He said he initially set out to illuminate how computer codes and other code, such as DNA, produce a consistency, like a pillar. But as the sculpture progressed, he said, it became more treelike, and PVC piping and corrugated tubing serves as branches looping around the art gallery’s rafters.

In the end, Smith said, code is an organic thing, a tool for creation.

Bright patterns that show on one of four screens attached to the pillar are the computer code versions of written words displayed on three other screens. Smith’s palette for the patterns is the JPEG image format.

There is a performance aspect to Scott Johnson’s piece, called “Meme in the Machine.” Seemingly abstract video is projected onto a wall. The gallery visitor is encouraged to move knobs on a control panel, causing the images to change.

Johnson creates these images to accompany digital music, providing visual stimulation to accompany live digital music performances.

As an art piece, he said, “Meme in the Machine” poses a question about instantly popular, widely circulated Internet videos, called memes. He asked, “If you destroy them, do they still have value?”

To create graphic arrays, he superimposed one popular Internet video meme over another.

The use of digital technology is the universal aspect of the exhibit, but there is a fair amount of questioning of technology by artists while examining flaws and limitations.

Christopher Tice simulated a computer malfunction in his untitled piece. The work itself malfunctioned on opening night, June 10.

One of the works, from teacher Rose Marshack, is a bookcase with a selection of books that someone else chose for her. Upon coming to ISU last year, Marshack found she already had a “wish list” of books at Amazon.com waiting for her, because her ISU e-mail address had previously been used by someone else.

The title of the exhibit piece is: “May All Your Dreams Come True: Ode to rmarsha@ilstu.edu, 2004-2005.”



‘Test Pattern Sound Check’



An exhibit of video, sound, images, three-dimensional work and multimedia installations by students, faculty and alumni of the Illinois State University arts technology program.

-- Through Sept. 12, University Galleries in the Center for the Visual Arts, Illinois State University.

Events

7 p.m. July 29: Performance of digital music by Axion Theory.

7 p.m. Sept. 6: Performance of digital music by Axion Theory.

5 p.m. Sept. 9 Closing reception, with digital music by Nick Hoffman and Stephen Ganser.

Summer hours

Noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday. Noon to 4 p.m. all other days, except Sunday. Closed Sunday.

Free, but donations sought. (309) 438-5487.
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An exhibit called "Code as a Pillar" by Christopher B. Smith is displayed as part of "Test Pattern Sound Check" at University Galleries at Illinois State University in Normal. (The Pantagraph/CARLOS T. MIRANDA)
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