Shawn Decker

Chicago artist-composer Shawn Decker’s erratically twitching and clicking sound installation is a field of thin metal rods topped with tiny loudspeakers. After I walk the perimeter of Motion Studies (Prairie) (pictured) for a few minutes, the piece sounds less like the wind rustling through prairie grasses—its inspiration—than free-jazz percussion.

I still dig it. Using mechanized clicks—occasionally sliced by silence—instead of prairie field recordings enables Decker to hypnotize us the same way nature does, once we ignore distractions and tune in to its background noise. In this attentive state, sounds metamorphose and subtle patterns emerge. Moments after the “prairie” goes quiet, a cluster of “sedges” begins to tremble again.

Kinetic elements and Decker’s clean, minimalist design enhance the listening experience. The artist spaces the rods evenly and places a fiberglass mesh below them, which creates a smooth black surface without completely concealing the electronics integral to the piece. Motion Studies (Prairie) recalls 20th-century artist Harry Bertoia’s sonic works, such as the Sounding Sculpture at Chicago’s Aon Center plaza. But while Bertoia’s sonorous rods sway in the wind, their random clanging activated by nature, Decker’s quiver because of tiny motors, their clicking defined by computer-generated patterns.

The installation would be stronger if we could immerse ourselves in it instead of standing beside the “field.” Decker must agree: Motion Studies (Prairie) is a small-scale sneak peek of a larger piece, which will encompass a space as large as 40'?x?40' and allow visitors to roam through the sonic grasslands.

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