Texture Wellington Review

Copyright Kirin Dass and texture.co.nz

Exploring the relationship between sound and motion, Tony Nicholls' current show at Enjoy Public Art Gallery presents sound energy from an interesting visual perspective. The Hamilton-based kinetic sculptor has successfully created a work which like a visual amplifier, allows us to see things that we can't hear.

Nicholls' sculptures incorporate elements of sound that can be heard with infra-sound, which is below our natural threshold of hearing. Driven by soundtracks engineered from a sine wave generator as well as recordings of polystyrene blocks caused to bounce in a speaker cone. Motion activates the materials including rods of steel and thread, and Nicholls uses sound as an electronic signal to drive the movement of his carefully constructed piece.

This work is powered by simple, domestic amplifiers which gives the show an appealing DIY feel. The resulting 'soundtrack' is very, very low and mainly inaudible. I'm hypersensitive to sound and find that my ears can easily tune into low frequencies, so I loved how at the opening for this show, I'd be standing around talking to someone, and then all of a sudden, a beautiful, gentle drone would jump out at me. "Listen to that! Can you hear it?"

While Nicholls has created a work that is carefully structured as a physical piece, I think it resonates strongly as an audio piece as much as it does as a visual work. Just be careful to not decapitate yourself on the length of oscillating wire. It's like a wire skipping rope in mid-air. Until October 4.