Look Inside

Have you ever experienced an art installation where there’s nothing to look at? Sounds funny, but sound installations are all over the place in Seattle galleries. Last year heard the soft tinkering of Angela White’s Always a Pleasure at Greg Kucera, which involved glass shards on strings that slowly bumped into rocks atop spinning turntables. Another pleasure was Susie J. Lee’s Frequency Map at Lawrimore, an eight-channel installation of knocks, whistles, and other barely perceptible sounds that emanated from a stark, empty room you stood in. In each of these, what you didn’t hear was as important as what you did—the space between the artists’ intentional sounds becoming an equally crucial part of the piece, filled in with your own thoughts or ideas of what might come next. Another eight-channel installation comes to Jack Straw this week: Switzerland-based Jason Kahn’s Wires. Using tin cans, loudspeakers, and steel wires, Kahn aims to create a sense of the room slowly “stretching” as visitors walk through it. His previous installations, shown throughout North America and Europe, have had a similar goal: “to enhance spatial awareness through sonic intervention, focusing on expanding our perception to other dimensions of seeing, hearing, and feeling a space.” Reception: 7 p.m. tonight. Gallery hours: 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Mon.–Fri. Continues through March 28.
Thu., Jan. 31, 7 p.m., 2008