Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste
Epistemophobia
We recommend wearing headphones.
For aCCeSsions Issue 4, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste has created a looping soundtrack that utilizes a range of bass and sub-bass tones, which are barely audible through laptop speakers but “hyperaudible” through headphones. For Toussaint-Baptiste, hyperaudibility refers to sounds that are physically and noticeably felt within the body that may provoke feelings of pleasure, pain, gratification, or longing. His physically resonant compositions are concerned with the dual capacity of bass to force bodies into submission or excite them into propulsion—how bass may be used as a tool both for liberation and for subjugation. He has titled this piece Epistemophobia, after the fear of gaining too much or the wrong kind of knowledge. The low, drawn-out bass of Epistemophobia grounds the issue, threading through its various contributions.
BIO
Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste is a Bessie-nominated composer, designer, and performer living and working in Brooklyn, NY. In 2014, he received his MFA from Brooklyn College’s Performance and Interactive Media Arts program, and in 2017, was an Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn. Toussaint-Baptiste is a founding member of the performance collective Wildcat! and frequently collaborates with performers and fine artists, including Will Rawls, Yanira Castro / a canary torsi, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, and André M. Zachery. He has presented work at the Brooklyn Museum; The Kitchen, New York; ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; FringeArts, Philadelphia; Tanz im August at HAU3, Berlin; and Stoa, Helsinki, among others.