Protests against racism in the wake of the death of George Floyd are continuing in the States and have reached other countries, including Australia, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and the UK.
The events were obviously followed by the media all over the world, so it was inevitable to watch a news programme and see footage from a demo somewhere in the world. There is an artist (and filmmaker) who will probably be incorporating some of these images in his own work - Kahlil Joseph.
At last year's International Art Exhibition in Venice the artist presented "BLKNWS", a video project started in 2018 and based on a simple concept - anything can be news.
Conceived as a television programme and broadcast on a split screen to symbolise the disruption of traditional media models and a combination of high and low culture, cinema and contemporary art, the project presented an uninterrupted flow of images focusing on Black American life and on the struggles endured by Black Americans, and it included materials from YouTube videos and amateur film footage to Internet memes, Instagram stories, news clip and in-studio interviews.
This energetic mix of images that disrupted linear thinking and that featured the most disparate extracts and footage - and that in the case of the Venice Biennale installation incorporated Princess Nokia singing "Don't you fuck with my energy", historical figures like Martin Luther King and sports icons such as Serena Williams - was expanded during the biennale, to feature news updates and inserts that reflected real-world events. At the moment we can only wonder if Joseph is working on a new edit of his "BLKNWS" installation, but you can bet that at some point we will be able to see a new version of his "BLKNWS" that looks at the current events and hopefully chronicles real and positive social changes in our globalised world.
Comments