Work in Progress- consent not to be a single being

Duration: 20:54

This audio-visual experiment attempts a speculative call and response gesture towards Eduardo Glissant's demand: consent not to be a single being. Collaborating with South African jazz drummer and scholar Tumi Mogorosi , the ongoing project stages a reading of the sociality of black life through the prism of an Apostolic Church Brass Band based in Gauteng, South Africa. The collaborative artistic research experiment focuses on the polyphonic, the more than one. Here the swarm of effects; a synaesthesiastic modality offers a way to think through/across/ within the uninteresting boundaries of the (dis)ciplines of immersive image-making and jazz improvisation. The iteration enacts a promiscuous encounter whose offspring will always be at the risk of being deformed or dislocated.

music composed by tumi mogorosi

text from DeAesthetic: Writing with and from the Black Sonic by Tumi Mogorosi

performed by tumi mogorosi (drums) mthunzi mvubu (alto sax) reza khota (guitar) ariel zamonsky (double bass) cinematography by hlengiwe mkwayi jéad stehr edit by jéad stehr .

360 Immersive 

If this be a city (2009)

Duration:8:28 min

A man, in a high-rise building. He is restless. He seems unable to calm the world inside his head, noises from the city penetrate his cocoon. Later, however, it is revealed that it is quiet in the room, where the man is. Not only do noises from outside oppress him, but his memories are also constantly being triggered through the voice of the doppelganger. The latter can articulate, what the man himself cannot. The film explores the poetics of space, urbanity and longing.

Screenings

20th Edition of the Videoex Internationales Experimental Film and Video Festival in Zurich, 2018

Johannesburg Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2015 9 May 2015

Urban Flux Film Festival, Johannesburg 2012/201

 

Sustainable Human(e)Settlements: The Urban Challenge (2012)

Duration: 2:45 min


The work was conceived and produced in the context of the eponymously titled conference convened by Prof. Amira Osman at the University of Johannesburg. The film premiered at the UN-Habitat: World Urban Forum 6, Naples, Italy 2012.

 

Capturing Gama (2004)

Duration:4:27 min

‘The cowardice that I saw in the black society, where they are scared to say I am wounded!’ Gamakhulu Diniso

Capturing Gama is an experimental short profile of the prolific painter, satirist, activist Gamakhulu Diniso. I spent 2 years training as a theatre-maker with Gamakhulu; the work is an interrogation of the notions of artistic genius, agitator and mentorship refracted through the diverse oeuvre of the master’s works and thoughts.

 

My Levites (2003)

Duration:6:20 min

The work explores the lives of the young members of the St. Paul Apostolic Church of South Africa, based in Sebokeng, a township 50km south of Johannesburg. The video is part coming of age tale, part celebration of music and a portrait of my community.

 

A Revolutionary’s Manual ( 2006)

Duration:8:55 min

A Revolutionary’s Manual is a Dogme 95 inspired video, exploring the pitfalls of paper revolutionaries set against the background of university student protest in Johannesburg.