Exhibition: The View Without

Morgan McAuslan's exhibit at UNR's Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery was very interesting. He took common items like colored plexiglas, small motors, some metal and the inside layer of old thermoses to make a very unique and interesting installation. With the use of the motors, he allowed the materials to interact with one another to create an interesting and unique sound art aspect to the piece. Upon walking into the gallery, the first thing that grabbed me was the constant but light sound of the installation. A mix between wind chimes, a xylophone and a steel drum, the sound had a calming effect that filled up the entire room, but was light enough not to over power anyones talking or thoughts. 

The main structure of the exhibiting consisted of a couple dozen neon multicolored plexiglass arrangements, which when powered by the rotating motor within, caused them to spin like a clock and eventually cause a series of connected small wooden hammers to make contact with the chromed thermos components. It was a very visually stimulating interaction of color and motion followed by sound. I really liked how he turned common stuff that everyone has access too like the plexiglass and miniature motors and combined it with the interesting thermos "bells" to make something all his own.

It was very obvious that the artist put a lot of though into the exhibition despite the look of chaos on the walls. When examined closely, each of the separate contraptions had dozens of little pieces that looked like they required a bit a precision to align in the right way to make it work as a whole. Another small thing that caught my eye was his use of all red extension cords to power the individual pieces. First off, I've never seen a red extension cord so I was a little taken aback at first and thought he might have painted them. They were, however, really red extension cords that were arranged and installed very neatly adding to the piece as a whole themselves.

Overall I though the installation was very interesting and a good use of the space. The constant sound coupled with the motion, color and composition of the piece made it interesting to the eyes and ears and showed very creative use of somewhat common materials. This exhibition really showed that with a little creativity you can make just about anything into a compelling piece that is sound related, but much different than anything I would have thought of regarding sound art.