Voice Farm - Gnomon Soundtrack

"Gnomon," at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through Dec. 1, is the first hit of the nascent visual arts season. The buzz is correct.
"Gnomon" is a site-specific installation that fully inhabits one of SFMOMA's small design galleries. It is the product of graphic designer Tom Bonauro and the Interim Office of Architecture (IOOA), a firm composed of Bruce Tomb and John Randolph that is devoted to crossing the boundaries between sculpture and architecture. (The sound program was produced by sound designer Charly Brown & Co., the members of which also form the band VOICE FARM.) All are local designers, and their collaboration speaks of the high level of creativity flourishing here in the various design fields.
A large - 18-by-7-by-8-feet - free-form polyurethane object that rotates apparently randomly in a black space illuminated only by the images that appear on its skin,
"the blob" is like a giant potato from outer space that has come to us earthlings with cryptic messages that might save us if we could only find a way to interpret them.
Images of a sheep, pulsating concentric circles, a
"rain" of lights, an open book, expanding cloudlike forms, a metal cylinder slowly rotating in space, and bleached-out, soft-edged color images of people and animals - as well as their animated surrogates - appear and reappear on its surface, as in a dream. As it stops and starts, a Cagean sound collage evocatively fills the space: Industrial sounds, distant murmurs of indeterminate source, distorted human speech and haunting bell-like tones create an atmosphere of both calm and menace.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• alternative
• indie
• synthpunk
• electro-pop
• electronic
• new
• wave
• san-francisco
• conceptional-art
• modern-art

[MaryTM]

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