All Ears

Arts House to 6 Sep

New Zealand-born, Brussels-based artist Kate McIntosh creates acoustic and auditory experiments, and also conducts the audience's thought processes with questions — often at the same time. She asks us to raise our hands or make a noise if we can whistle, if we've eaten dinner solo in the last week, if we've seen someone in the audience we should know the name of but don't, if we have ever stolen something, if we're thirsty, if we agree with the phrase, "Hell is other people" — she asks us maybe 50, more, and asks herself some — about us, mostly — too. You can read as much into the questions as you want, or treat them as pure curiosity, and most of us happily go along with this crowd participation element, sharing glances and laughs with strangers around us. McIntosh's sense of humour is dry but warm, and her playfulness and enthusiasm negates any potential pretentious air the experiment might have exuded.

Props are handed out to various audience members, with instructions on them. As we follow these, we create a soundscape of chairs being dragged across the ground, of objects being smashed and thrown and cut, of paper being crinkled. It's an aural thrill, and we hear everyday sounds in a bright, new way — in a musical way. Under McIntosh's guidance, we also emulate the sound of rain using only our hands and legs; it's unexpectedly realistic and extremely calming. It's a moment.

On the surface, All Ears is an immensely enjoyable imagined community-based form of entertainment; look a little deeper and you'll find comments on crowd control, obedience and defiance, how we form divides and alliances (consciously and unconsciously), and how much of us as individuals is informed by other people — all in a multi-sensory format.