Belly, Hype Williams, 2008. Shot by Malik Sayeed.

Music Video as Black Art: Claiming the B-Side

our symposium to celebrate the 10-year-anniversary of the founding of the group

We gathered on September 21-23, 2023 to celebrate the artists and scholars whose work has prompted our questions, sustained our praxis, and built archives for the conversations we continue to have about the power of contemporary black audio-visual aesthetics:

Bradford Young, Jenn Nkiru, Elissa Blount Moorhead, Shawn Peters, Stefani Saintonge, Kya Lou, curator Ekow Eshun, and scholars Kara Keeling, Robert O’Meally, Mark Anthony Neal, and Stefano Harney. Bios can be found here.

Collectively, they are translating the most powerful visual insights of black music into a visual language that seamlessly moves between high art and popular culture, music and the visual arts, fashion, design, and architecture. We believe this is the most consequential audio-visual aesthetics of our times and we showed their work and asked them about their process.

Read Press Release Here

The event is presented by Liquid Blackness, Limited and the liquid blackness Project (www.liquidblackness.com) with generous support from a Terra Foundation of American Art Convening Grant. The Terra Foundation for American Art, established in 1978 and having offices in Chicago and Paris, supports organizations and individuals locally and globally with the aim of fostering intercultural dialogues and encouraging transformative practices that expand narratives of American art, through the foundation’s grant program, collection, and initiatives.

The event is additionally supported by the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Institute and Global Classroom Initiative; Georgia State University’s College of the Arts, School of Film Media and Theatre, Center for Hellenic Studies, and Creative Media Industry Institute and the Office of the Vice president for Research & Economic Development; the Department of Film and Media at Emory University, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Ranged Touch podcasting network, a host of community supporters from the extended liquid blackness community, and in intellectual partnership with the Academy for Diaspora Literacy, Inc.’s Guardians of Heritage.

HOW WE’VE PREPARED

Instagram Promotional Projects

A series of Instagram posts in July and August have outlined our research focus, pedagogy, archival practices, and overall ethos of black study. The reels, edited by Anna Winter, Joshua Cleveland and Cedric Simmons, harness audio clips gathered during interviews with liquid blackness members Ashley Hendricks,  djones, and Daren Fowler, as part of the research that led to Third Measure (also by Anna Winter, Joshua Cleveland and Cedric Simmons), a lyrical summation of these same themes.

Third Measure

Stefano Harney Study Group

 

During the summer, we also gathered
in a study group on the work of Stefano Harney.

In late August and September, we ran a screening series,
introduced by Alper Gobel, Alessandra Raengo, and Daren Fowler:

Music Video as Black Art Screening Series – August 24-September 7, 2023

August 24: Relationship to Experimental Cinema
Don’t Go Tellin’ your Momma (2020) dir. Topaz Jones, Jason Sondock, Simon Davis
Nowhere, Nobody (2019) dir. Naima Ramos Chapman, Terence Nance, cinematography by Chayse Irvin
Hub-tones (2018) dir. Jenn Nkiru
Untitled (2018) dir. Bradford Young
Clips from Zorn’s Lemma (2017), Hollis Frampton


August 31: Musically driven Filmmaking
En Vogue (2014) dir. Jenn Nkiru
Grandmaster Flash: How to do a Break Mix (1983)
Rebirth is Necessary (2017) dir. Jenn Nkiru
m.a.a.d.(2014) dir. Kahlil Joseph
Black America Again (2016) dir. Bradford Young
4:44 (2017) dir. by Arthur Jafa, Elissa Blount Moorhead, Malik Hassan Sayeed.
 

September 7: Colors and Textures
Jimi Could Have Fallen from the Sky (2017) dir. Terence Nance
Belly (1998) dir. Hype Williams
Fucked Like a Star (2018) dir. Stefani Saintonge
Swimming in Your Skin Again (2015) dir. Terence Nance
Keeping Time (2023) dir. Darol Olu Kae

In Media Res

In September and October we ran two theme weeks of In Media Res focused on the research project that has led to this symposium and on reflecting on insights gathered at the Symposium:

liquid blackness presents: Music Video as Black Art: Claiming the B-Side
September 11-17, 2023

A Pedagogy of the B-Side
By Daren Fowler

Reflections on Music Video as Black Art: Claiming the B-Side
October 30-November 1, 2023

The Power of the Return
By Michele Prettyman

Sent to See
By Stefano Harney

Symposium Screenings

 

As Told to G/D Thyself (2019) dir. The Ummah Chroma

During the Symposium we screened or discussed the following works:

Symposium Screenings: Music Video as Black Art: Claiming the B-Side

Opening night, Sept 21
Third Measure (2022), by Anna Winter, Josh Cleveland and Cedric Simmons
As Told to G/D Thyself (2019), by Umma Chroma (Bradford Young, Marc Thomas, Jenn Nkiru, Terence Nance, Kamasi Washington), cinematography by Shawn Peters

Opening Night reception:
Black Mirror (2020) by Kia Pooler
History | Alchemy | Evolution (2021) by Ariel Brown

Friday morning masterclass, Sept 22:
Fucked Like a Star (2018), by Stefani Saintonge
Common, Say Peace ft. Black Thought (2020), cinematography by Shawn Peters
Chapter 5 - Prada (2021), dir. Terence Nance, cinematography by Shawn Peters
Keeping Time (2023), dir. Darol Olu Kae, color correction by Kya Lou
Hub Tones (2018), by Jenn Nkiru and Kamasi Washington
Tribe7 – Bradford Young

Heavily referenced during Friday afternoon panels:
Rebirth is Necessary (2017), dir. Jenn Nkiru
Hub Tones (2018), dir. Jenn Nkiru and Kamasi Washington
Earl Sweatshirt: Nowhere, Nobody (2019), dir. Terence Nance, cinematography by Shawn Peters
History | Alchemy | Evolution (2021), dir. Ariel Brown

Saturday morning masterclass, Sept 23
Keeping Time (2023), dir. Darol Olu Kae, color correction by Kya Lou

Heavily referenced during Saturday afternoon panels:
Process (Kahlil Joseph, ft. Sampha, 2017)
Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977)
Moonlight (Berry Jenkins, 2016)

Music Video as Black Art Event Videos

Opening Night

Thursday (Sept 21, 2023), 6-8pm –Kopleff Recital Hall, GSU

Screening of As Told to G/D Thyself (dir. Bradford Young, Terence Nance, Jenn Nkiru, Marc Thomas, Kamasi Washington, as Umma Chroma group)

with filmmakers Bradford Young, Jenn Nkiru, Elissa Blount Moorhead, Shawn Peters, Stefanie Saintonge, Kya Lou in conversation with Michele Prettyman.

Day Three

Saturday, September 23, 3:00-4:30pm—
Kopleff Recital Hall, GSU

Panel 1: “Curating Ensembles–Curating for Sound” with Ekow Eshun, Elissa Blount Moorhead, and Mark Anthony Neal, "Hello Stranger": Fugitive Analogs in the Black Digital Era.”

Saturday, September 23, 3:00-4:30pm—
Kopleff Recital Hall, GSU

Panel 2: “Black study as aesthetic practice” with Kara Keeling and Stefano Harney

Day Two

Friday, September 22, 3:30-5:00 pm-
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

Panel 1: “Music Video as Black Art:
Claiming the B-Side: The Project”
with liquid blackness members Alessandra Raengo, Lauren Cramer, Daren Fowler, Gail McFarland, Jenny Gunn, John Roberts, and djones.

Friday, September 22, 5:30-7:00 pm-
Atlanta Contemporary Art Center

Panel 2: “When Music History Becomes Art History,” with Robert O’Meally, Craig Dongoski, and Walton Muyumba.

Robert O’Meally, “Time to Get Back to the Water: August Wilsons’s Black Liquidity”

Craig Dongoski, “Drawing Voices/Mental Radio”

Walton Muyumba, “As Serious as Your Life: An Improvisation of Form”

with the participation of members of the Editorial Board of
liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies:

Lauren McLeod Cramer (Co-Editor-in-Chief)
Chip Linscott
Michele Prettyman
James Tobias
Walton Muyumba


Symposium organized by:

Alessandra Raengo—
founder of liquid blackness research group, founding Editor-in-Chief of
liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies, CEO of Liquid Blackness Limited

Corey Couch
Joshua Cleveland
Alper Gobel
djones
Ashley Hendricks
Gail McFarland
Cedric Simmons
Anna Winter 
and
Daren Fowler
Jenny Gunn