Modern Painters

July-August 2008 issue

INTERPLAY

Synesthesia --a perception in one of the senses triggered by stimuli to another, such as "hearing" colors, or "tasting" words-- has been a subject of intense fascination for artists and philosophers alike since at least the 18th century. "Interplay" used the notion to examine how concepts drived from music play out in different media. David Kwan's luminous projected desertscape Terra Firma (2004) at first seems to show a static single image of barren hissl bathing in a pale golden light, but sifts almost imperceptibly between four similar landscapes by slowly erasing parts of one and overlaying it with arts of another, adopting the layered structure of a fugue. Four etchings by the experimental composer Steve Reich proved a more literal interpretation of the show's theme of sound to sight translations. In a maddeningly simple visual correlate to "phasing," his signature practice of layering one musical motif several times but shifted out of synch, Reich's etchings overlay the paper's pristine white surface with a black ink tracing of its watermark. Several video animations by Bartosz Psacki pictured a gloomy black-and-white universe of "habitats" --human habitation structures seemingly plucked from a Stanislaw Lem novel. They are rife with ambient sounds (cracking doors, footsteps) without visible source. The eerie sense of disorientation this disjunction between sight and sound evokes, points to what this reviewer takes away as the main point of this intriguing show: namely the inevitable schisms produced by sound to sight translations, and the essential integrity of each realm.

-Yasmine Van Pee