TRT: 25:55
3-channel projection.
Iron, aluminum, chain mail, wood, subwoofers, mixer, amplifier, PA speakers.
pappyshow in the dark time, my love (2022) investigates the potentiality of the call and response nature of Black sound for destruction and regeneration. A soundscape consisting of an admixture of soca, noise and techno accompanies a series of interviews where participants are asked: what would you do if you could have your revenge? The sound makes clear a confluence of sonic alliances across time and geographic specificity within Black diasporas. Looking specifically at the social function of these genres and their use in public space to incite chaos within the context of pleasure, I highlight a lineage of Black musical provocation, particularly jabjab music, soca and noise, as an analogy for flattening existing hegemony and the commons.
How can song conjure the sublime, necessary, and oft resisted work of deconstruction? What are our restraints? Here, a desire for revenge and restitution can function like a bassline on J’ouvert morning: a scaffold for channeling body memory and a hope for something-somewhere-better than here; loose and freeing under the cover of night. It is a three-channel video accompanied by a bench in the shape of an ouroboros that is embedded with subwoofers. The soundscape’s droning bassline plays throughout the video and materializes itself in the viewer’s body through the bench: dread made tactile.
Director: Kearra Amaya Gopee
Producer: Shinelle Ambris
Director of Photography: Latisha Leslie
Key cast in order or appearance: Shayna Springer, Richie Daly, Elana Riojas, Ashlee Burnett
Editor: Kearra Amaya Gopee
Score: Olithea Anglin & Akeema-Zane
Mixing and mastering: GENG PTP
Colour: Natacha Ikoli