E VIS E L NA DA
AN at the NLS in Jamaica over the course of two nights in February. Audience participation was critical to the realization of the work, the result of a 48-hour residency. Members of the audience wore black clothing the first night, becoming the figure for the work; followed the second night by wearing all white to function as the ground for the projections. Visual artist, Rodell worked with image while performance artist, DJ Afifa, worked with sound. Their collaborative temporal work had a 360 degree span, blending the outdoor space and the audience with sound and images to produce a sense of pure integration, experienced in the moment.
in these times, their imagery calls upon us to conceive another possibility. We are working in a region still deep in economic recession with no immediate signs of abating, compounded by crises of leadership. Since we cannot find logic in much of what our ‘leaders’ are doing and we don’t seem to be moving from A to B….let’s use our imagination to secure another vision for ourselves and see where it may take us.
These creatives use the new media genre to project their creative imagination into/onto the civic arena, encouraging us all to visualise our public spaces differently. These works, by their very nature, suggest fleeting, transitory spaces not grounded in anything certain or clear. It is as though we are all being forced to navigate our way through an uncertain terrain – on our bicycle, with a telescope, in our mind. Although these artists reflect a sense of precariousness inherent
vol.1 issue 4
SPRING 2013
77