world wide web million man march

interactive cd-rom, 1997

"What is the difference between a community based on identity and identity based on community?"

“Broken down into four central areas: desire, spirit, identity, and pleasure, World Wide Web/Million Man March suggests the fluidity of "race and place" at play, yet denied, in contemporary dialogues centering on technology and emergent social bodies. One area of misplaced cultural rhetoric is the paranoia and utopia attributed to both the Internet and Black masculine activist practices.

Hoping to move beyond dualistic binarisms and their predetermined transgressions, World Wide Web/Million Man March resigns itself to a babble of humour, paradox, urban rhythm, and endless impressions of transitional color.”

— Video Data Bank, Toronto

Black High Tech Documents by Erika Muhammad, part of the anthology Struggles for Representation: African American Documentary published by Indiana University Press

translocations::

Fresh out of grad school, I was fortunate to take part in this exhibition of established and emerging American and British artists. TRANSLOCATIONS was curated by artist Keith Piper and Janice Cheddie at The Photographers Gallery, London.
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artists
New work by Reggie Woolery, Alex Rivera, Poulomi, Kenseth Armstead, Art Jones, Shaheen Merali, Virtual Varrio, Surjit Simplay, and Allan de Souza.
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“The centrepiece of the exhibition is Permanent Revolution Part 2, a collaboration between Keith Piper and Derek Richards.
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Taking the form of a physical interactive environment of soundscapes and projected still and moving images, this important new work explores the role that the convergence of migrating peoples, exchange and fusion play in cultural change.
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Culture, death, sex and health are seen as opportunities for profit in Roshini Kempadoo's installation Lapping it Up, which looks at the commodification of social activity. The work consists of four large scale digitally composed images constructed to form a series of shop front elevations.
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Focusing on the position of Black people within this exchange system, Kempadoo examines the dialectic of the commodification of Black culture alongside the increasing economic displacement of Black communities worldwide.
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The third section of the exhibition is made up of a selection of digital prints and computer based work curated by Janice Cheddie. It includes Keith Piper's 'Caught Like A Nigger in Cyberspace' and Rosendale Odyssey a virtual exhibition of multimedia work by primary school children on the world wide web.
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https://rhizome.org/community/42179/

:: digital video

at land

An homage to Maya Deren’s reflection on identity and upper class society, this video re-envisions home from the vantage of a migrant upon colonial shores. excerpt.

(video. color. sound. 5min. 2023)

playing in the light

Using Toni Morrison’s essay “Playing in the Dark,” as a starting point, this work romps through the American romance tradition in 1940s cinema and contemporary popular culture, foregrounding how figures of Blackness are appropriated to picture whiteness. excerpt

(video, color. sound. 20min. 1994)

thirty-eighth parallel

This work explores the relationship between a father and son. Using the 38th parallel — a mark of latitude that is now synonymous with the split between North and South Korea, and also an American military conflict that my dad participated in as a soldier — I attempt to piece together our distant relationship. excerpt

(video. experimental documentary. color. 15min. 1993)

converse

A choreography for camera work, Converse was produced with Lorna Ann Johnson and paired with music from ‘Conchita's Lament’ by Miles Davis and Marcus Miller from Sketches of Spain. excerpt

(video. color. 5min. 1992)