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Well lit
"Son et Lumière" at MIT and Abe Morell et Andy Grundberg at Montserrat
BY RANDI HOPKINS

At tourist hotspots from the Giza Pyramids in Egypt to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, you can swoon to dazzling "Sound and Light" extravaganzas — nighttime spectacles in which historic structures are illuminated with programmed variable colored lights synched to a soundtrack. In Boston, the Museum of Science projects its own psychedelic indoor version onto the dome of its planetarium on a regular basis, rotating laser Floyd with laser Led Zeppelin and laser U2. By current standards, these outdoor displays appear low-tech but still lovable, an early stab at bringing monuments to life and making museumgoing and sightseeing more engaging to audiences.

Of course, even in the realm of fine-art museums and galleries, passivity is passé, stasis is stale — we’re learning to love art that moves and grooves. Enter the MIT List Visual Art Center’s new exhibition "Son et Lumière" next Thursday, an entrancing group show organized by MIT List curator Bill Arning that goes well beyond the now-ubiquitous museum video projections to explore current art using sound and light. "Son et Lumière" brings together four artists and two artist teams who create six large installations with the likes of hidden cameras, subsonic and directional speakers, and simple light bulbs.

One remarkable work immerses viewers in the world of Internet chat rooms. Listening Post (2001), created over the course of a two-year collaboration between Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin, was shown to great response at the Whitney Museum of American Art last year; the ever-changing installation takes bits of text that are circulating in real time in chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other public forums on the Web and displays them on an enveloping, curved curtain wall of LED screens as they are spoken aloud by a mechanical voice synthesizer. "Listening Post" highlights the poignancy and contradictions between our desire for connection and the condition of isolation epitomized by the Internet.

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Bruce Bemis, Ann Lislegaard, Michael Mittelman and Jessica Rylan are also represented with engaging work. Plan to spend some time with this show — it promises complex, thought-provoking art. MIT is also hosting several public programs related to the exhibition, each of which pairs artists from the show with visual artists, curators, musicians, and filmmakers with their own interest in "Sound and Light." The planned events include a conversation between curator Arning and artist Ann Lislegaard on February 13 at 6 p.m., and one between multimedia installation artist Muntadas and Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla at 7 p.m.; Ben Rubin, Mark Hansen, and Jessica Rylan with musician and artist George Lewis on February 14 at 2 p.m.; Bruce Bemis with filmmaker Mark Lapore on March 6 at 2 p.m.; and Michael Mittelman with Denise Markonish, director/curator of the nonprofit Artspace in New Haven, on March 19 at 6 p.m.

Conversation will also be illuminating at Montserrat College of Art when two biggies in the world of photography share the stage in "Artist/Critic, A Conversation with Abelardo Morell and Andy Grundberg" next Thursday at 6 p.m. Morell has an extraordinary body of work, from large-scale black-and-white photographs taken using the antiquated, magical camera obscura to close-up photographs of books that are both revealing and mystifying. Grundberg was for many years the influential photography critic for the New York Times. These two should have a lot to talk about!

"Son et Lumière" is at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames Street in Cambridge, February 12 through April 4, with an opening reception February 12 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.; call (617) 258-7265. Abelardo Morell and Andy Grundberg will speak at the Dane Street Congregational Church, 10 Dane Street in Beverly, on February 12 at 6 p.m. No tickets are required, but there is a suggested donation of $5. Call (978) 921-4242.

 


Issue Date: February 6 - 12, 2004
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