Iole Alessandrini's suitably named sound and light installation, Untitled, is a compact, all-white anteroom bisected and trisected by luminous planes of green lasers. Donning the kaleidoscopic eyeglasses provided by the artist multiplies these coolly abstract force fields into disorienting circuit-board skeins of light.
Created with a slew of collaborators--Ed Mannery, Steve Ditore, Aimee Friberg, Pedro Alexander, Larry Rouch, Tai Kitamura, and Mallet Inc. --Untitled harks back to the work of electroacoustic composer and granular synthesis pioneer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), who in the late 1960s and 1970s created site-specific spectacles of swirling lights and biting electronic sounds called Polytòpes.
Untitled is a quiet Polytòpe for our era of lowercase sound. Except for spurts of smoke (which form exquisitely marbled eddies within the glint of the green lasers), and the creaking floor, you'll mostly hear squamous rumbles and an infrequent annunciatory gong. Hushed and meditative, Untitled seems made to be experienced solo or with a friend or two. One suggestion: Before you go, call ahead and request "extra smoke" in the installation.
Prior to entering Untitled, keep an ear open in the lobby for Susie Kozawa's The Gathering of Sounds, an ambient installation of children's laughter, cawing crows, sewing machines, pounding raindrops, and other field recordings all gathered and arranged randomly into multiple layers. CHRISTOPHER DeLAURENTI
Untitled runs through Fri Oct 15 (Jack Straw Productions, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE, 634-0919), Mon-Fri 9 am to 6 pm, free.
