Dysmorphias Draw a Line

2018, SculptureCenter, In Practice

With Dysmorphias Draw A Line, Jules Gimbrone creates work that asserts the presence of the flexible, nuanced body, in particular, the sounding of queer subjects that are regularly silenced in the public sphere, through an ecology of transmorphic, responsive materials and audio. An ensemble of glass vessels, filled with salt water and detritus (rotting grapefruits, a rusting screw, and mold) placed in a line, act as both instruments and speakers. Gimbrone records intimate dynamics between the resonant glass vessels and a sensitive mic—the feedback as it nears the surface of the glass, the sound of water poured into their interior—as well as their own body: a mic dragged along the hair of a leg, an emanation of voice from inside the mouth, a hum or hiss. At times Gimbrone voices the word bad, drawn out and stretched like the sound of a sheep, disarming the word from its decisive, snap judgement quality—it’s assertion of an either this or that. Gimbrone sounds bad as if to take a POTUS tweet (#verybad) and turn it into a vibratory, wordless emanation. Transducers attached to the vessels let it all playback through the glass—the sound scored to let each play as individuals or to sweep through the line, a transmission across one permeable and peculiar body—queer, our natural state, as Gimbrone believes—in an ecstatic if at times discomforting environment of sonic touch.

–  Allie Tepper, Curator