Ryan Gander It's too strong a current for the wire / The Pluralistic Mind, 2026

Ryan Gander’s It’s too strong a current for the wire / The Pluralistic Mind consists of a life-sized, lifelike animatronic toad sitting on a wooden pallet, partially hidden by what appears to be a large boulder. From beneath the rock, the toad delivers an emotional speech. Voiced by the artist’s daughter, it offers an imagined, hopeful view of the future cognitive world of his youngest son, Baxter, who has been diagnosed with autism. Unusual in its candor and subjective content, the work questions our assumptions about behavioral and cognitive conventions.

Running for about 14 minutes, the toad’s monologue touches on mimetism, masking, stimming (self-soothing movements), affective and cognitive empathy, catalytic guilt, and transient shame. It offers an imaginary portrait of Baxter’s experience as a non-verbal autistic person. The speech is coarse and sincere, referencing the science writer and activist Steve Silberman’s speech on autism, as well as Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein.