Sparkle
Until February 1; Threshold Art Space, Perth Concert Hall

Now in its second year, Scotland’s only permanent collection of digital art boasts over 35 works, many commissioned specially. They don’t belong to a gallery, and many who see them are unaware that they are viewing art. Sprinkled around the high-tech nooks and crannies of Perth Concert Hall, the sound, video, and interactive works are part of the fabric of the place itself.

In its own small way, the Threshold Art Space, as these sites are collectively known, is a hint of a world to come. Remember Tom Cruise’s bewildering journeys through the city in Minority Report, where wallpaper leapt into action on seeing him coming, advertising goods tailored to his agitated state?

Such a world filled with ambient intelligence (where technology is embedded all around us, unobtrusive unless it’s busy reacting to our needs) is not that far off, much of the hardware already being available. Just this week, passengers at Heathrow Airport were offered biometric scans of their face and eyes to fast-track them through security. Enter their irises into a database along with the details of their credit and loyalty cards, and you’re half way to Steven Spielberg’s futuristic world of advertising.

But don’t worry – Big Brother is not watching you at Perth Concert Hall. Though sound and images pop up in some of the most unlikely places, sometimes mirroring your actions, they don’t – yet – know who you are. The Threshold system is sensitive to the degree of crowd activity in the foyer, and capable of reacting accordingly, but none of the artists in the current show, Sparkle, has exploited this facility.

In the front porch, your movements trigger snatches of sound put together by Andy Shearer. Far from being a futuristic clamour, the sounds play one at a time, like distant echoes picked up miles away from a cranky radio receiver. In a corridor space inside the building, Joanna Kane’s digital mirror projects your own moving image on a wall, like a transparent ghost which glides and freezes in and out of vision.

In the toilets, the aptly named “Flush” screens entertain you while you dry your hands, with a host of one-minute films by young people across Europe. Screens like these will soon become ubiquitous as advertising tools, and it’s pleasing to see not-for-profit content getting there first.

The main focus of the Threshold space is its celebrated “Wave” of 22 high definition screens, spanning the width of the concert hall. Graham Robertson’s Shutter makes full use of the unusual shape, displaying a roll of film 22 frames wide, with streaks of coloured light ripping through it like lightning. During a journey from Aberdeen to Germany to Perth, Robertson wound a film slowly through his camera with the shutter slightly open, capturing a conceptual landscape which looks stunning in this location.

Nils Messeke’s Running And Falling also makes the most of the format, stretching a snowy cityscape across the screens. The artist repeatedly stumbles and staggers from both ends at once, meeting and disappearing in the middle. The result is hopeless, humorous, and very human.

Ironically for a concert hall hailed for its superbly-designed acoustics, the big failing of the Threshold Wave is its audio. Catherine-Anne Lee’s beautiful new work, Sonorous Forms, is deeply dependent on sound for its power. The cello notes should surround you like foghorns, vibrating through your body as they do through the water on the screens. But this is a café, a foyer, and a box office: no-one wants to hear the art at top volume all day every day. And that poses a big question for art: can it cope with being ambient?

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 10.12.06