CHAR JERÉ

In layered installations, Jeré draws on Afro-fractalist theory, her own autobiography, and a background in data analytics to examine the ways in which the built networks of our world enact a complicated relationship between race and technology. Remembering the Mind: A Study in Progress expands upon Jeré’s project Genuflect Symphony, which redefines the concept of “Black Noise,” (as opposed to white noise, which is traditionally positioned as a neutral sound), not as an absence, but as an assertion of the identities that history has sought to erase.

Jeré, who has experienced night terrors since childhood, is interested in how real-world anxieties manifest in psychological spaces and how these fears can be rendered in image. In the exhibition, paintings that draw on memories ranging from the intimacy of the artist’s grandmother cradling her brother, to the monsters of dreams, appear throughout the installation, alongside repurposed satellite dishes. Picking up on found radio signals, these collected feeds are disrupted by the consistent noise of Marsona sound machines, pointing to their intended function as sleep aids, to combat or allay unwanted noise. The fragile, technological network created between these devices is furthered by the presence of a polygraph machine, an antiquated device initially developed for medical purposes such as sleep studies. Later utilised to conduct lie detector tests, a purpose for which it was subsequently debunked, the device still carries a legacy as a tool for oppression. Woven together into a field of sound, image, and association, these elements form a meditation on how technology’s promise of neutrality, and knowledge, can disguise its use as a tool of harm, as well as the often disquieting ways in which our lived experiences intertwine with our inherited history.

In 2023, Artists Space presented Zoo or Orchestra, Char Jeré’s first exhibition in New York. In 2024, Jeré was included in the gallery’s group exhibition,Eighteen Painters, and additionally included in Peripheral Belonging, at GhostMachine, New York. She received a MFA in Sound Art from the Computer Music Center at Columbia University in 2023. Additionally, Jeré earned an MS in Data Analytics and Visualisation from Pratt Institute in 2021.

The artist and the gallery thank the Media Arts Assistance Fund, administered through NYSCA and Wave Farm for their support of this project.