Michael Workman

An unusually warm, though still rainy night on a bustling corner of State Street in the Loop. Pedestrians shiver in the chill as they cross in front of the LaSalle Bank or Osco drugstore, heading in the direction of the Berghoff restaurant on Adams Street. At the corner sits an empty building with a locked revolving door guarding a slightly dilapidated lobby, a spiral staircase descending into the hexagonal tile floor of what once was a bustling downtown diner. Outside, cars splash through icy puddles. Tires skid. Horns blare. Alarms sound. Passing beneath the construction scaffolding at the intersection of State and Adams, those on foot are suddenly assaulted from above with an unsettling cacophony of bleeps, whoops and buzzing sounds. Wind whips mercilessly. More than forty speakers explode toward the sidewalk below, mounted on metal poles to the underside of the canopy. They're very, very loud, not diminished even slightly by ambient street noise, yet the reaction of pedestrians is uniformly dismissive. Half the fun's watching how people deal. Most strain to act like they haven't noticed or glance around with perplexed expressions. A short black woman at the intersection fixes her gaze on the "don't walk" light. "They'll be here forever, man!" raves a homeless fellow, passing a businessman who decides to stare at his watch. Their tactics are ineffectual, the sound chipping away like an ice pick at their concentration. All eagerly await the moment they'll be freed from this aural zone.

The brainchild of Chicago artist M.W. Burns, "Sound Canopy" enjoys the sponsorship of the Hyde Park Art Center and Marc Realty and was collaboratively curated by an impressive number of groups including Something Else, Temporary Services, splinter group, Experimental Sound Studio and Deadtech. At least ten artists have agreed to participate in the calendar rotation of sound recordings broadcast through the canopy, with Stephen Lapthisophon kicking off the season with "Anonymity," his taped reading of Poe's story "The Man of the Crowd." At the time of this writing, Richard Curtis' "Vocal Topographies: Chicago" was playing, a recording of mouth noises meant to approximate the city's streets sounds. Up next, Ausgang.com's Melinda Fries with "Violent Things, 2003."

Most pedestrians will encounter "Sound Canopy" only briefly before sloughed it off in a growing distance. But lingering beneath the canopy produces a strange sort of auditory disorientation that shakes listeners out of their usually passive relationship to the environment. Listen for a few minutes and occasionally a newly unfamiliar sound will creep in; a cell-phone ring tone, for instance. It almost fits in, except it doesn't. Ultimately, the unsettling vocalizations of the artist create a separate, insular sort of association from the surrounding street noise. How's that for public disturbance?

Video Free Europe
Estonian artist Ene-Lils Semper's video "Oasis" opens with a shot of the artist, shirtless and lying on his back, mouth open in a wide "O." A hand reaches down from above, shielding the left side of his face as a garden spade unloads a scoopful of moist soil into the gaping mouth. Maneuvering to gently dislodge the dirt, the blade smoothes and pats the dirt into the orifice, packing it down until the cheeks bulge slightly. A small bouquet of flowers is then worked in, stems pressed solidly into the soil.

Slovakian artist Magda Tóthová's video "Lenin and the Maiden" depicts love for dead authority figures. In it, the artist gazes down adoringly at a chipped white bust of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin. At first, gentle caresses. Then she presses her lips passionately against his, licking and nibbling at the inanimate mouth, hers visibly drying. Pulling away, she kisses his forehead, her lips stretching and sticking in threads. Down the hall plays Polish artist Anna Niesterowicz's video, "Beaver." A looped shot of a young woman's legs, the camera pans up to her thighs, following her hands as she hooks her thumbs to draw her panties down over her ankles. Kicking them away, the camera moves off into the distance, then pans back up again to continue the process of baring a never-seen vagina. In Estonian artists Killu Sukmit and Mari Laanemet's video "Lucy," a woman falls endlessly before the window façade of an apartment building. Serbian artist Vladimir Nikoli's "Rhythm" shows a row of five men and women genuflecting in time to techno music.

Part of the survey "New Video, New Europe" on display in Hyde Park at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, these short films make up the show's gallery program. A large white cube sits in the center of the space. Patrons may enter through heavy black curtains on each side to view one or all four of the programs making up the core of the survey. Included are works from Hungary, Moldova, Kosovo, Croatia, Bulgaria, Lithuania and elsewhere with curatorial subjects ranging from the trauma of civil war and the capacity of video to mediate reality to the state of video as an experimental medium, pre- and post-MTV. Programs run in duration from 51 to 102 minutes.

Pencil Pusher
Taking 30,000 yellow #2 pencils and punching them through a piece of drywall sounds like an exercise in caricaturing boredom. Except that, for Brazilian artist José Damasceno, they're a medium. Besides pencils, Damasceno makes his work using a profusion of everyday objects, such as hammers or chess pieces. Step back from "Observation Plan," opening this week at the Museum of Contemporary Art's second floor lobby, and what you'll see resembles an image made using a magnet and metal shavings. Finished images depict human figures contemplating a blank square that suggests a museum patron viewing a wall-hung piece of two-dimensional art.

"Sound Canopy" shows at 202 South State, (773)324-5520, through April 6. "New Video, New Europe" shows at the Renaissance Society, 5811 South Ellis, (773)702-8670, through February 22. José Damasceno, "Observation Plan," shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago, (312)280-2660, through March 1.

(2004-01-20)

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