Wonder Women :: Art & Technology

Past all of the large pieces of artwork in the very back of the Nash, the back section of the room is filled with noise and an entire wall is covered with small square videos of all different kinds of people. I chose to reflect on this piece because of its impact. You see the dark room and don't know what to expect and then you walk in and hear noise before seeing anything. Then you turn around and see a wonderful collage of people covering the wall.

The use of technology in this piece is incredible and essential to the piece. The last thing I expected to see when I walked in the room was a massive amount of videos put together in a giant collage. If there were just a couple of videos, the piece would not mean the same thing. The large amount of videos aren't just to show a variety of people, they are needed in order to create a massive amount of noise.

You can't pick out ONE person speaking or singing or whatever they are doing in their video. The piece is about enjoying noise. At first I found it frustrating to look at this piece and not be able to pick out one video to listen to. I was able to get close enough and look at one individual video, but I couldn't hear them specifically no matter how hard I tried. This was extremely unenjoyable. Then I did what the title of the piece said to do. ("How I learned to stop listening and love noise") I stopped listening, and it opened up an entirely new world of the piece. Our world is full of people and noise, but we don't necessarily stop to listen to noise as a whole. We listen to individual people and what they have to say. This piece brings to light all of the noise we're missing out on. When a lot of people talk at the same time it creates a new sound. This piece shows how many people come together with their own ideas and thoughts and create one unified sound.

Another interesting point about noise is that it doesn't matter what language you are speaking or what age or gender you are. The noise that this piece creates encompasses all of these things and I think that is beautiful. The piece has a whole new meaning when you sit back, close your eyes and just listen.

The images on the wall are also incredible, but in a different way. There are so many things going on in the collage. It would take hours to look at each individual frame. No two are the same, or at least not that I saw. There are people of all ages doing many different things. Some are dancing, some are showing signs, some are just talking. It's amazing to see everything that people do when they're being filmed. I loved how the videos spanned the full length and height of the wall. It is so large that you cannot stand back and see the whole thing at one time. You have to walk along the back wall to see everything. The fact that there aren't any gaps in between any of the frames connects with the idea of noise, because they are connected together into one unified collage. Even though each frame contains a different person, they are all contributing to the noise of the room.

This piece really made me look at noise in a different way. I used to think of noise as annoying and chaotic, but if you take the time to just listen it is actually quite amazing.