Exhibiting at Art Center a Sound Experience for Kate Lee Short
Short’s piece for the exhibition, Oculus, a 12-channel, 275-speaker installation, enticed viewers to step inside and listen to low-frequency sounds. She says that she learned a lot about her own art from the reactions of viewers and was honored to have her work shown alongside the other Hear This! artists: Chris Duncan, Mark Malmberg, Christian Marclay, and Julianne Swartz,
Following are several questions the Art Center asked of Kate Lee Short regarding her experiences exhibiting here, and her responses:
What was the most rewarding part of presenting your work at the Art Center? The most rewarding aspect was how supportive the environment was. Your curator, Lisa Ellsworth, was spectacular to work with and was very helpful in getting me the things I needed to work with in order to make it all happen. I also liked the fact that everyone I came in contact with at the Art Center was open, interested and excited about the work I was doing.
Can you share your experiences as a panelist in conversation with sound artists Paul DeMarinis and Laetitia Sonami? It was an amazing experience to be on a panel with Laetitia and Paul because they are incredibly knowledgeable, insightful, and in many ways have been very influential within the sound art community. To be able to discuss my work, the other art in the show, and what it means to make this type of work was amazing. It was really exciting to delve more deeply into everyone’s relationship with sound art, and to get that conversation going.
How has your experience exhibiting at the Palo Alto Art Center inspired future ideas? It’s inspiring to think that it’s possible to make larger works happen through the support of organizations such as the Palo Alto Art Center. Having gotten this support while I was here gives me the confidence to continue to create this work. There’s also something interesting about working with the public in a context that allows for a greater appreciation of the work I’m making. I like my art to be approachable by many audiences, and working at the Palo Alto Art Center gave me a stage to think about how my work might be able to do that.
What do you hope Palo Alto Art Center visitors come away with after having experienced your work? People go away with vastly different relationships to the work. I hope people come away with a greater appreciation of their physical presence in the world. Most of our day takes place on computers or phones and that’s a very internal space. The work I make is about pulling people’s senses back out into the world around them. I want people to feel something more, rather than be caught in the digital vortex we tend to end up in. The work is strongly visual but it is sonically very quiet and this invites the viewer to listen more closely and to experience the work on a whole different level.
Anything you would like to add? Working at the Palo Alto Art Center was an amazing experience. I left feeling incredibly supported by both the staff and the infrastructure provided by the Center. I can’t thank everyone there enough for all that they did to make my experience there so special. It was a great setting to present my work in. The gallery is large yet intimate enough to create a very warm and inviting space for the artwork to be shown. The Hear This! exhibition itself was wonderful and it gave people a chance to see a lesser known movement that has been going on in the contemporary art world for well over 40 years. It gave a voice to the sound art community in a way that opens people’s eyes and ears and made it accessible to people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to experience this type of art. To have all of the artists in the show come together in that space was really spectacular and it still amazes me.
