Performance artist Ime Soul (formerly Immanuel J.) brings BirdSong Blues to Gallery 495 in Catskill with two live iterations on January 24 and 31 at 1pm. BirdSong Blues collapses performance, sound, and text into a dizzying, disorienting live experience that draws its source material from phishing scams, algorithmic “hacks,” and the textual glitches of the digital age.
Using a self-made karaoke video feed, Ime Soul screams, improvises, and performs language as it fractures—turning deceptive digital speech into urgent, embodied expression. The work interrogates the distressing impact of social media on relationships and reckons with Blackness, abjection, and the audience’s capacity to witness struggle and endurance. BirdSong Blues resonates with contemporary explorations of trauma, language breakdown, and the epigenetic legacies of racialized experience, evoking both discomfort and revelation. Don’t miss this provocative performance at Gallery 495 January 24 and 31.
