Upon entering the Prairie Art Gallery, I see three Uncertainty Makers, which Quebec-born artist Jean-Pierre Gauthier has become quite well known for. Next to them is a geometric network of metal tubes suspended just above the floor from a system of mechanized pulleys at the ceiling of the exhibition space. Moving across the gallery, I trigger the motion sensor attached to the controls of the machine, causing the tubes to undulate randomly. The tubes clank and rattle.

Initially, the impression I get from the exhibition is of some sort of pseudo-life. It's as if the machines lay in wait, only becoming active when an external body comes within a certain range. However, this notion seems best taken as a clue to a more specific insight about the viewer's relation to and experience of these works of art.

Continuing through the exhibition, I discover in an auxiliary room a large collection of items mounted to a curved apparatus made of metal tubing. Some of the items, which include glass bottles, scrap wood, cable ties and wire brushes - all actuated by small motors - are connected via contact microphones and meters of colourfully coated wires to a multi-track sound mixer with its volume faders subject to mechanized variation. Other objects are mounted on or in speakers. By virtue of the automated mixer, different noise-making items are allowed to connect with their corresponding speaker, as if to add their two-cents to what at times is a cacophony, and others, a murmur.

The particular sense of pseudo-life that Gauthier's kinetic sculptures generate has, in part, to do with a display of personality. Admittedly, my perception imbues these machines with personality. But in the aim of avoiding a completely human-centric bias, they don't exclusively respond to the presence of people. Any solid object that is large enough to trigger the motion sensors will elicit recognition from the machines. For example, a floor-cleaning machine brought into the gallery is acknowledged by Gauthier's machines as much as the person operating it is. The difference is that the kinetic sculptures are on exhibit for people, who may or may not appreciate them; yet in such an instance, the floor-cleaning machine shares in something on the order of solidarity with the other machines on display as art objects.

Additionally, my recognition of personality traits in these machines is aided by the title of the exhibition: Machines at Play. Initially, the clever thing about this title is that machines are typically designed for work.

But what does it mean when a machine is designed for play? Disregarding machines that are designed for people to play with, consider this: the machines in the exhibition are designed as kinetic sculptures. Though Gauthier declares that the machines are at play, the purpose they are to fulfil - their work, so to speak - is to be on display in the art gallery as kinetic sculptures. As a result, the title of the exhibition provides a subtle, surprising point of complexity regarding the roles that the viewer, artist, and art occupy.

To recall Marcel Duchamp's famous description of the creative act, art consists of two poles - a gesture of art is initiated by an artist on one side and it is completed by the viewer on the other, who passes a judgement on the art, which completes the significance generally attributed or denied to a work of art. Duchamp explicitly refers to the media involved as "inert"*.

The artistic gesture that Gauthier makes with his kinetic sculptures involves the medium almost to the point of collaboration. This might be said of any artist working with kinetic sculpture; however, Gauthier embraces this collaboration from the outset. He designs his machines to play - their work is to play. Rather than passively occupying the gallery space, these sculptures dynamically convey Gauthier's artistic gesture, on his behalf.

* Duchamp, Marcel. "The Creative Act." Session on the Creative Act. Houston, Texas. 1957. Speech. http://www.iaaa.nl/cursusAA&AI/duchamp.html