Before visiting Mouth Open, Teeth Showing, a new mixed-media exhibit at The Henry Art Gallery, one should give a listen to Sam's Town, The Killers' bombastic new album. Heck, it wouldn't hurt to bring an iPod along for the ride, were it not for the audio-visual nature of many of the exhibits. Named after an off-the-strip Las Vegas casino, Sam's Town is steeped in poverty, despair and a tragic optimism borne of restlessness rather than reality.

Likewise, Mouth Open, Teeth Showing, which was culled from the private collection of William and Ruth True, longtime patrons of the Henry and founders of the Western Bridge contemporary art space, simultaneously celebrates and undermines the social constructs from which we draw meaning, revealing the American masquerade for the grand charade that it is. Within Mouth Open, which stretches across two floors of the Henry, the museumgoer will find drunken brawls, 162 vintage dolls and a stadium full of frenzied Brazilian soccer fans.

The heart of Mouth Open, Teeth Showing is Doug Aitken's i am in you, a five-screen audio-visual presentation which sees its North American premiere at the Henry. Essentially a short film, i am in you begins with a close-up shot of a young girl and her disembodied voice ominously declaring, "I like to run and not slow down. You've got to stay sharp. You can't stop." Throughout the 11-minute film, mundane images such as video game controllers, airplanes and candles flash across the screens, three of which lie parallel through the middle of the room; the remaining two are against the walls. Occasionally, the middle screens go blank, but something is always lying on the periphery. The cumulative effect suggests that life, at best, isn't even a fractured fairy tale, but rather a steady stream of input, oftentimes resulting in sensory overload.

Joseph Grigely's 151 White Conversations finishes Aitken's sentence: garbage in, garbage out. On display here are random scraps of paper containing random scraps of thought, with a clear predisposition for sex and alcohol. So, what is one to make of a statement such as "Believe me, in Slovakia, I saw a lot of meat"? It seems unlikely that Grigely is preparing for a career as a food critic.

Of course, not all of the thirteen works on display were created equally. For example, many would agree that Martin Creed's Work No. 312: A lamp going on and off, which is precisely what it sounds like, is less than illuminating. However, even this seemingly simplistic piece manages to tease out a few thoughts from more technically minded viewers with too much time on their hands. Perhaps the alternating current flowing through said lamp is a statement on the essentially binary nature of existence. Is nature essentially binary? Is this train of thought worth Googling? Yes. No. Yes. No. On. Off. On. Off.

Perhaps more obvious — and infinitely more compelling — is Up in the Sky #1-25, a series of bleak lithographs by Australian photographer and filmmaker Tracey Moffatt. Taken in an impoverished aboriginal town, the photos show humans at their most animalistic, wrestling in the dirt, howling at the wind and crawling on all fours across a highway. Even a group of nuns, encroaching upon a house Night of the Living Dead style, have a predatory air about them.

At times, the museumgoer is destined to feel like a foolish accomplice in an ultra-absurdist experiment, staring at a 30-minute movie of a man's head being frosted and an LED display featuring an extended tooth-brushing session, however, most of the works are worth consuming in their entirety. Perhaps even more than most art exhibits, it would be advisable to peruse Mouth Open, Teeth Showing in the comfort of one's own solitude.

What is it that compels this restless "productivity"? DNA? A soul searching for purpose? Is there any external purpose to discover? Mouth Open, Teeth Showing seems to suggest that human beings are destined to uncover only as much meaning as others are willing to create.

Mouth Open, Teeth Showing runs through September 23.