Rut is a large installation/soundscape, designed to evoke the sounds of a summer pond filled with frogs, birds and flying insects but constructed entirely from simple mechanical and electronic devices.

Filling the entirety of the gallery’s main exhibition space, Rut consists of a complex tubular metal structure that serves as the infrastructure for an assemblage of simple mechanical devices whose sounds are sequenced randomly. Combined and composed, the devices and sounds interact in a relational structure of sound that is at once artificial and natural in its unfolding.

In scale and complexity, Rut marks a new milestone for the Montreal-based Gauthier’s work. The winding tubes that define Rut’s skeleton and its visual line support a network of sound devices, including motors, microphones, mixers, speakers and wires. From these varied points, the viewer is surrounded by the amplified sound of an array of small mechanized devices with contact microphones attached. These sounds are then mixed into a random, sequenced string of noises. Gauthier’s exploration of sound and sculpture emphasizes the ways and means in which random events combine to form patterns of seeming coherence and beauty.

Jean-Pierre Gauthier is the 2004 recipient of the Sobey Art Award. His work was recently acquired by the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, Canada. Recent exhibitions include Flow, a solo exhibition at the Knoxville Museum of Art, TN (October 2003 to February 2004) and Demons Stole My Soul – Rock n Roll Drums in Contemporary Art, a group exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada (2005).