Jamal Cyrus’s Artpace exhibition, Phonic Substance, is comprised of five components. The first is a large-scale vertical graphite drawing that uses an image of a UFO sighting-a record procured through the Freedom of Information Act signed into effect in 1967, which mandated the disclosure of documents and information controlled by the United States government. The image is duplicated in the first three frames of an enlarged 16mm filmstrip; subsequent frames convert into images of a large stone sculpture from the Olmec civilization of South-central Mexico.
The second component in the installation is a bronze conch shell, resting atop a pyramidal base modeled from the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico’s ancient city of Teotihuacán. There is also a bass drum closely surrounded by clusters of non-functioning microphones that appear to capture the reverberations echoing through the gallery. The fourth component is a freestanding platform that has the pattern of sound lines-as they would travel through the space-etched into its surface. The final piece harkens back to the original graphite filmstrip, referencing documents that have been censored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and were later made public through the Freedom of Information Act. The large-scale drawing makes areas of censorship prominent, highlighting large blocks that have been erased with black ink.
Cyrus employed a different formal technique in rendering each piece in the installation. The filmstrip reproduced on a large strip of paper was composed through precise incisions filled in with graphite. A testament to tradition and ritual, the conch shell was cast in bronze to weather a literal and metaphorical test of time, discoloring and developing a soft sheen of patina as it ages. The bass drum is covered in silky black leather, surrounded by microphones that are expected to capture and amplify sound, yet are simply for show, and remind of the role and emergence of music in culture. The monolithic bases sit heavily on the floor of the space, structurally alluring and imposing in black concrete. The stark white pyramid echoes the artist’s interests in cross-cultural iconographic parallels, and is reminiscent of the historical legacy and sophistication of ancient societies that repeated pyramidal architecture throughout the globe.
For his exhibition, Cyrus juxtaposes a series of dissonant objects that are formally unrelated, yet share cross-cultural origins and temporality. He pulls from a non-linear view of history, identifying the concrete and corporeal intersections between diverse cultures to focus his attention. Thus the origins and progression of music, the use of the conch shell in differing social and civil rituals, and pyramidal architecture seen in continents across the world act as Cyrus’s thematic embarkation to explore their functions and influences between direct and indirect cultural interactions.
-Leslie Moody Castro, Graduate Intern
