Evelena Ruether's Continued Retention

Walking down the hall toward my studio I suddenly hear a distant, but still jarring rumble of crumpled, white noise. Following this perplexing sound leads me to a door. I open it and suddenly I'm overwhelmed by a bellow of low mechanical groans, and the shrill cry of metal scraping against metal. "What the hell is that," I wonder after recovering from the temporary mental and physical paralysis caused by an acute auditory overload. Before I discover exactly what the sound is, I look around the room and deduce it's origin,"It must be coming from that glowing cube of shipping pallets on the floor there." As I approach this enigmatic construction for further inspection the sounds become more clear. I recognize the motor and shifting transmission of a tractor-trailer along with the screech of its breaks. This sonance is mixed with other ambient noise, sounding like a shipping yard. With one puzzle solved I'm still left with the riddle of this thing on floor making so much racket.

It is constructed from rustic, grimy, and presumably used shipping pallets - the apparent property of Coca-Cola Enterprises. These perhaps illicitly obtained wooden pallets are fashioned together to make a cube. Two opposing sides are in original form while the other four pieces sandwiched between them are cut smaller, creating an object thirty six inches on all sides. Tightly housed within the core of this cube is a smaller, translucent acrylic cube covered by images on its top and one of its sides. It is illuminated by an inner light source, causing the images and blank pieces of acrylic to glow, creating a stark contrast between the white light of the acrylic and the silhouetted wood slats passing in front it. The image on top is of cracked and chipped safety glass reinforced with wire. Following down, the image on the side of the sculpture is of an interior scene (perhaps an apartment or some sort of industrial space) filled with stacks of boxes, some full while others are open - either being packed or emptied.

The materials used to construct this object, the imagery that appears on it, and the sound emanating from it combine to form an uneasy idea about transition and moving between spaces. The sound of the trucks and the shipping yard suggest the movement of materials, products, and possessions while the pallets are a physical link to the activity generating these sounds. The image of boxes on this object indicates that someone is moving - either into or from a particular space. The cracked safety glass suggests that perhaps this place is industrial or institutional and not terribly comfortable. The slats of the pallets that pass in front of the images resemble a cage, creating the sensation of being trapped. The glow that pours from the acrylic box is stark and bright. This glowing box is encased in an overbearing structure of splintered wood that is filled with bent nails and smeared with dark grease and dirt. These elements combine to create an uncomfortable feeling about transition suggesting an unending process of moving between places where one is trapped in a state transit. The disruptive sound of the trucks continually loops and the boxes are never fully packed or un-packed, proposing a constant state of flux in which one is never settled. The initial discord of the sound down the hall has opened into a disquieting experience with a work that offers the viewer little comfort, leaving me free to go about the rest of my day plagued with a subtle pang of insecurity.