Around the corner, hung vertically on the narrow side of the freestanding wall, was Life This In Find We (fig. 19). Created from an early twentieth-century piano roll, this piece privileges the integrity of that object, with the only visible alterations the shiny aluminum foil that fills the holes that originally allowed the song to play, and the addition of a narrow copper strip running down the side of the work (fig. 20). Life This In Find We is a beautiful visual object, but comes alive when the visitor places one hand on the copper strip, and another on one of the aluminum lines. By completing the circuit, this gesture activates as speaker to produce recorded sound. Depending on where one places one’s hand, three channels of sound can be layered, allowing the visitor to play the piano roll—no player piano needed. Visitors could also link hands, completing the electrical circuit as a group, to play the piece. Life This In Find We was one of the most popular works in the exhibition. This was due to the sense of surprise, discovery, and wonder aroused through its interactivity, and to the tonal quality of the sound produced (Rowland’s work plays a contemporary piece of music, not the song denoted by the title, lyrics, and matrix of dots on the roll).

With Swartz’s Transfer (objects) the visitor had some inkling of how and where sound would emanate from the objects when lifted to the listener’s ear. With Rowland’s The Other Side of Air and Life This In Find We, by contrast, there was a quality of the unknown. While the audience at Hood Downtown was primed to have an aesthetic experience simply by walking into the museum’s gallery space, the playful mechanisms Rowland employed were a delightful surprise. The opportunity for physical interaction with the objects, which violates common museum etiquette, likely added to their appeal. Often visitors received instruction from a group leader, or from one of the Hood’s visitor services staff, on how to operate Rowland’s works, making them much more accessible than the Resonant Spaces installations in more public, but unstaffed, spaces.