SPOOKY ACTION / FLESH WEDGE

Using the FOCA office space as a sound source for this work, Gimbrone uses microphones a aural arrows, pointing to the subtle sounds of a work space; the hum of electricity running through wires in the wall, wind from central air, the activities of an office worker. These sounds, so often relegated to the distant background of cognition as we navigate the world are brought forth in this work. Live sound from the space resonates from a chair that visitors are invited to sit in, and is played back through the intimate medium of headphones. Gimbrone also points to the body in this piece, a clay impression of Gimbrone’s body is laid out on the floor before the chair.

FOCA office space, condenser, dynamic, and contact microphones, mixer, amp, tactile transducer speakers, metal chair, blue paint, modeling clay, 2014.

The Third Ear
Fellows of Contemporary Art
970 N. Broadway, Suite 208
Los Angeles, CA 90012
FOCA’s Exhibition Space is open Tuesdays thru Fridays from 10 am – 5 pm

In the same way that the “third eye” is a metaphor for a real or imagined sensory organ
that perceives less tangible matter, conceivably, the “third ear” also perceives a realm
located somewhere beyond what can be immediately verified.

Human sensory perception registers just a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum
(EMS) as sound and light. All sound and light, even matter vibrates and has a specific
resonant frequency. The human ear perceives sound at waveforms between 20 and 20k
Hz while light and color resonate at much higher frequencies. Still, there are a whole
range of EMS frequencies that exist beyond the capabilities of our sensory organs. It is
here that one could envision the third ear functioning – in a range somewhere between
sound and light, between the audible and the visible.

The Third Ear exhibition invites five Los Angeles Based artists working with visual
approaches to sound to participate in an exhibition that investigates the aural in
contemporary visual art. Inspired by a subtitle to a recording by artist and composer
Maryanne Amacher, The Third Ear explores the space between sound and visual
cognition through contemporary sound art practices in Los Angeles.

Organized by artist and independent curator Chiara Giovando, The Third Ear, includes
works by Jules Gimbrone, Chiara Giovando, Mette Hersoug, Alison O’Daniel and
John Wiese.