Noisy Exhibit Highlights West Side Neighborhood

A local arts group is making some noise with a newly opened exhibit in a west side neighborhood. Big Car’s latest exhibit, which explores the relationship between sound and place.

Like a vast and lonely strip mall in the heart of Lafayette Square, Big Car has set up shop with two exhibits that opened earlier this month. Big Car Executive Director Jim Walker says that cheap, abandoned retail spaces like these are the future for artists.

"It used to be that artists were using the downtown areas and warehouses that were sort of left behind, so I think it’s good for us to show that and demonstrate that to people, and make good use of the spaces instead of wasting them," Walker said.

Big Car closed its art and culture space – called the Service Center – just up the street from here last summer, but Walker didn’t want to leave the sprawling, ethnically diverse neighborhood, which he says fits with the spirit of Big Car’s work. 

"It's kind of experimental and challenging and new, that’s what we’ve got going on out here," says Walker. "It’s not a cookie cutter sort of area that’s just your standard place, it’s unique and different."

At the new space, dubbed “Listen Hear,” the Big Car staff collaborated with artist John McCormick on the sound exhibit “Noisy Neighbors,” inspired by the cacophony of their west side neighborhood.

"It’s pretty fascinating, it’s pretty inspiring," McCormick said. "I think that's one of the reasons this show worked out.  A lot of people working with Big Car weren't thinking about sound but there's so much rich territory out hear, it was kind of easy make that adjustment."

They were inspired by the neighborhood’s foreign food markets, faith-based centers and big box stores.  McCormick says one of his pieces takes from a location right up the street.

"I choose the Speedway gas station," says McCormick, "These are little motors that have offset weights on them."

The motorized Styrofoam cups skitter around in a corner of the exhibit.  In another corner, ceramic tiles scavenged from the site of a burned-out Cheddars clatter against a cardboard arm as a record player goes round and round.

"I have this modified turntable that I build contact microphones into and it picks up vibrations against the body and by arranging the tiles I can make these rhythms," says McCormick.

He says audio art allows for the exploration of everyday life.

"Sound’s everywhere all the time," McCormick points out. "Everythings making sound all the time so it's just my way of pointing back to the natural world that we live in."

Big Car’s other new space – the Show Room – features an interactive exhibit – mostly a series of artist-created prompts that encourage visitors to free their inner artist.