'Malfunction' has more than a ghost of a chance to be a hit

The sleeper hit of the holiday month is "Malfunction: Sentimental Ghost Is Missing" at Soil Art Gallery. It's a collaboration by Jesse Paul Miller and Brent Watanabe, two inventive and original artists.

Miller has been one of my favorite Seattle artists for a long time, and Watanabe joins his company with this show. Watanabe's drawings inspired by cute animals from children's books are placed in queasily ominous situations. The hypnotic, unrelated adventures look like spliced outtakes from "Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space," the ultimate animated movie of melancholic dread. The situations never actually turn ugly, but the tension is thick in every shifting scenario.

Miller supplied sound art that emanates from various vintage record players in the gallery. The drawings and field recordings are part of "Drawing Generator," a computer program written by Watanabe that assigns Miller's recordings to the drawings. They are randomly layered five at a time and projected onto drawing paper affixed to the wall like a sail. The shuffling of sights and sounds creates an ever-shifting narrative of menace.

Miller's instruments of choice are cross-wired children's toys, broken CD players, synthesizers and portable tape recorders. The soundscape is evocative with the images coming together and falling apart, instant entropic story lines compressed into flashes.

"Malfunction: Sentimental Ghost is Missing" is at Soil Art Gallery, 112 Third Ave. S.; soilart.org; 206-264-8061. Through Dec. 31, Tuesday-Sunday noon-5 p.m.

-- Nate Lippens