GENERATION LOSS
(as in the degradation of quality between successive copies∞)
Undercurrent, detail
[Song: Black Rainbows – Jean Carne, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad]
What’s most exciting about pivoting away from social media is remembering the ability to create space and show gratitude for who and what has been important in my life. It’s like music that keeps disappearing from the internet but still exists on old hard drives and CDs.
Shifting the energy of my disappointments in the internet, I’ve been leaning on my foundational ways of connecting more (pen-pals?). But, I still think about the conditioning to rely on micro-screens to translate and experience art.
And yes, work can often heal and incite and speak volumes regardless of the platform it’s mounted on (if it possesses that energy and intent). I’ve met so many amazing people through the net and I respect various strategies for accessing art; apart of why I love a good book cover or album cover project.
Never Catch Me, detail
But I have questions beyond the benefits.
Considering how people often assess value through micro-screens, in the past couple of years, I learned how frequently I’d be positioned to address the value of (black) - in all its incarnations -with respect to the work I do. Sounds obvious but encountering more audiences that lack a baseline connection and historical outlook that my foundational audience has, it wasn’t. And there’s a large range of how those addresses have felt to me. Either end has fueled thoughts and sharpened my eye to the importance of intention and power through the practice of being an artist.
For this post, I’ll stick to the value of Black through its digital face. I’ll call it a type of generation loss.
Rhododendron, 60" x 84", photo by Zeshan
Accelerated over the past decade, I think many artists feel disappointed in the treatment of art as a silenced commodity. And, of the artist as a should-be-silent-and-a-political business owner. How social media and “the” market condense art for consumption experience on tiny screens regardless of medium exacerbates the treatment. Screens are exceptional at flattening out blacks, reflective surfaces, and all-around materiality and energy of art.
This flattening of Black though exists in various dimensions, including photographing artwork. The statement often made about my own is “It’s hard to capture your work” or “Your work doesn’t photograph well”.
Hmmm.
Undrowned, detail
I’ll get to why there’s truth in those statements, but only until a colleague mentioned Bradford Young’s work in calibrating cinematic lenses for Black skin did I realize the importance of shifting my language and perspective on the matter.
The issue of capturing isn’t rested on a photogenic “lack”. Even with my (amateur) understanding of purple fringe effect and color aberration, setting failures, etc., I know that even with a skilled photographer and powerful tech, documenting and editing work far beyond the remedial expectations of IG is faint to physical experience. With the color / non-color Black, those faults can be magnified. And while I’m aware of tech biases regarding flesh, I hadn’t transferred the read to art and the likes. Add on that everyone sees and experiences colors differently (but I guess not black because it’s supposedly not a color?).
Regardless, as seen with Young’s project, technology in its supposed neutrality is not calibrated to see black. Perhaps to “capture” but not see.
"Rhododendron (The Seven Days)", 60" x 84", photo by Zeshan
The inability to “capture” though is such a foundational point within the work that it feels like I aced a test I didn’t know I was taking. It is hard to “capture” my work because the beings do not want capturing. To capture is to seize. To possess. To take away power and one’s freedom. All in the name of “shooting” work.
How do you even “capture” a peripheral spark you see around you? How do you capture the orbs behind your closed eyelids? How do you capture bodies protected by the cover of night?
Even I have to continuously re-write my artist statement as it never really captures what it is I’m even reaching for and dancing with.
Hmmm.
But technology only reflects its maker(s). So, how are we calibrated to see?
How are we trained to see and relate to darkened space? If Black is treated more as an experience of various types of light rather than just a non-color color, how does our relationship to color and art overall shift?
What does the experience of darkened space named Black reveal and reflect back to ourselves about ourselves?
What and who needs light as our eyes adjust to the darkroom?
What if seeing has nothing to do with optics?
I’m aware this is not a new conversation for everyone. However, I do expect more investment and attention to these details. Especially in institutions. Yet, I see too often either a devaluation or a fetishization. Both ends see past the work.
And yes, again, this often depends on the audience.
"Rhododendron (The Seven Days)", detail, photo by Pat Garcia
Regardless of how much people want to dislodge Black from the treatment of Black people, culture, and religion, it is woven into a genealogy of how we see and how we imagine.
Nonetheless, I am grateful for those insights that have helped expand my thoughts around this.
Two books useful in this convo are:
Painting for the Gods: Art & Aesthetics of Yoruba Religious Murals by Bolaji Campbell and
Dark Light Consciousness: Melanin, Serpent Power, and the Luminous Matrix of Reality by Edward Bruce Bynum, Ph.D.
This is a topic I will continuously unpack (so much was cut out for this post).
⚓︎
