Proxy Gallery is happy to host this exhibition by Nathan Dube. His work was selected from a number of submissions, for its originality and appropriateness for the proxy gallery. The installation centers on the exploration of how we experience and define the world through our senses.

Like many of us teaching across multiple campuses, Dube spends a lot of time driving and listening to music. During those long stretches on the road, he thought of the different ways an experience can be represented or understood. Can you translate image to sound and sound to image?

Of course, Dube understands the structure of music; he digitally analyzed a song’s structure, tempo, frequencies, and energy and that data was translated into visual form. The resulting works appear as both 2D drawings and a 3D sculpture, each offering a physical representation of the music. As he says, “Rather than illustrating sound, the pieces use the song’s underlying data to generate unique visual systems.”

The challenge of course is to present a visual experience that is compelling in its own right, not just a result of a digital experiment. Dube has achieved that, I think. The sculpture on the “floor” of the gallery appears artificial, like a solid representation of readings from an oscilloscope or spectrum analyzer, while the prints on the walls speak of rhythm in terms of colors, curves and motif repetitions.