Each sculpture and accompanying drawing referred to an experience Kim has had with a type of acousmatic sound, or sound without a visible source. These types of acousmatic sounds were delineated by prefixes—hence Prefixed in the title—written on the corresponding sculpture and drawing. For example, an-acousmatic, meaning without acousmatic sound, showed a cup of water. For Kim, who is deaf, this captures the moment when her ASL interpreter pauses to take a drink of water (figs. 32 and 33). Without an interpreter (or closed-captioning), acousmatic sound is unavailable to Kim. Melding both the impersonal (the terminology) and the highly personal (the imagery), this work posed some difficulty for many viewers. It was about sound, yet silent. Conceptually unfamiliar, and truly accessible only through anecdote, it required some effort on the part of the visitor to truly understand, either through reading the wall text or listening to an instructor. One student wrote:

I really started to connect with the exhibit in the HOP a lot more the more I walked past it and went into the gallery. The more I thought about and played with the concepts the more I began to really enjoy it. I feel like it grew into the space over the course of the term.¹⁶

In many ways Kim’s Grid of Prefixed Acousmatics is the perfect counterpoint to Alvin Lucier’s 5 Graves to Cairo. Both were highly conceptual works that required some outside knowledge to fully appreciate. They also spoke to the histories and oeuvres of their artists quite directly. While one was predominantly visual, the other had no visual component at all. Indeed, Lucier’s 5 Graves to Cairo exemplifies acousmatic sound. The sources are buried underground, undetectable to the eye.