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UCSD cafeteria's `Drive By Muzak' hard to swallow

Jenifer Hanrahan
STAFF WRITER

11-Nov-1999 Thursday

Art students at UCSD didn't need to adorn the Virgin Mary with elephant
dung to tick off much of the rest of the campus.

The sound of traffic -- motors revving, horns honking, snippets of
distorted Mexican polka and disco -- is playing nonstop on the sound system
in the campus food court.

Three weeks of assorted screeches, bleats, slams and rumbles has given
students a case of road rage in the cafeteria. They're almost to the point
of begging to hear anything else -- even the Backstreet Boys.

"It's so annoying," said Albert Pun, a senior who was scarfing Chinese food
directly under a speaker in the Price Center. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe they want people to eat and not sit here for very long," said Eric
Deng, a junior.

The gridlock soundtrack -- called "Drive By Muzak" -- was recorded by Eliza
Slavet, a musician and graduate student in literature and cultural studies.
He wants to find out if the ode to the I-5 and National City's Highland
Avenue could be unobtrusive, relaxing background noise, similar to ocean
waves.

"I have listened incognito to people . . . comment on how strangely nice
the Price Center seems with the sounds of traffic rather than some pop
music which sticks to your brain like bubble gum to the bottom of your
shoes," said Slavet, who is delighted with the intensity of the response.

Slavet's piece is part of "Spaced Out: Southern California Vernacular," a
campus-wide exhibition curated by visual arts graduate students Steven
Ausbury and Sarah Lewison.

"The idea is that in Southern California, the space -- freeways, houses,
the university -- is very ordered, and it's constructed beyond the control
of the people who live in it," Ausbury said. "What the artists in `Spaced
Out' are doing is questioning what's been done."

What's next? Bus fumes piped into the dorms? Nails scratching a chalkboard
in classrooms?

Not exactly, but "Spaced Out" does include:

Six parking spaces painted pink and called "Designated Romance Areas." A
$1 permit buys a couple 20 minutes in the "loving zone."

One artist (named "Jane") who dressed like a shrub and meditated with
other plants.

Gumball machines filled with seeds native to California in a grove of
Australian eucalyptus trees. Insert a dime and get a packet of seeds.

"Dispute Resolution Services" hanging large banners advertising TV shows
on campus, prompting numerous complaints.

But no project has riled students as much as "Drive By Muzak." Dozens
complained to the administration, and about 400 have filled out a
questionnaire Slavet left in the food court to gauge response.

"I didn't pay $14,000 to listen to the freeway while I eat!" wrote one
student.

"It really bothers me we are being used as guinea pigs to serve your
experiment . . . I think it's a violation of our rights to have such a
disturbance pumped in without our consent," wrote another.

One group plastered fliers in the dining area and set up an e-mail address
where students could write to join the protest.

"We buy and enjoy our cars with air conditioning and loud stereos so that
we can travel through the city listening to our OWN sounds -- NOT traffic,"
the presumably tongue-in-cheek flier said.

But some suspect the opposition group is itself a work of art, created by
visual arts students to stir up controversy and gain attention.

Even without "Drive By Muzak," the Price Center is not exactly as quiet as
the university library on a Saturday night. Wooden chairs scrape against
the floor, cash registers jingle, french fry alarms beep, students chatter
in several languages, and fast-food workers yell, "Your order is ready!"

Autumn Marsh, a junior studying linguistics, has no problem tuning out the
aural chaos. A catchy tune, on the other hand, would distract her. "With
(the traffic noise), there's no rhythm, and it doesn't hold my attention,"
Marsh said.

When the complaints started rolling, Lynn Cacha, acting director of
University Centers, asked Slavet if the food court could turn the dial, so
to speak, sooner than the Nov. 15 closing date for the exhibition.

"We wanted to see if she had enough research to end the project, but she
said this last week was critical," Cacha said.

Unlike New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani, who did his best to make sure the
public didn't see the "The Holy Virgin Mary" -- art that offended Catholics
-- Cacha let the traffic recording continue.

The Price Center, paid for by student fees, wants to provide a forum for
self-expression and hosts all sorts of student art exhibits and activities.

But come Monday, it's back to pop music. "Obviously that noise will get to
you after a while," Cacha said. "I empathize with the vendors who are there
all day who actually have to listen to it."

Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.