Water on the Wall

2020, video projection, vintage silver shell baptismal basin, 5:23 mins looped

Water on the Wall is a reflected, moving light image created by pointing projected video at an angle into a silver bowl of water. As the light of the source video bounces off the inside of the bowl, the water catches and throws the image onto the wall opposite the projector. The final light image, which includes abstract light rays and video of a woman performing in African American traditional praise dance, is approximately 18 inches across and up to 7 feet high. In this documentation of the installed work, a 3:01 minute loop of a minimal, synthesized melody fills the room. Water on the Wall is a gesture towards uncovering new possibilities in the aesthetics of Black cinema, using old materials that have deep historical and spiritual legacies to Black people stolen and dispersed into the Americas and Caribbean by the Atlantic Slave Trade. Water, dance, silver, light. In their combination is found an image that breaks out of it’s 4 cornered camera frame, constantly shifting in shape and size and brightness, conjuring non-linear formulations of time and space and (outer)bodily existence.

Disco Spread No. 1: If I Could Feel

2021, video 2:19 mins

Disco Spread No. 1: If I Could Feel (If I Could Feel) is a reflected, moving light image created by pointing a projected video at an angle onto glass mirror rounds. The resulting light image captured on a white background abstracts a video excerpt from the 1978 film adaptation of The Wiz and at some points is activated by the artist’s hands which move the mirror rounds in steady, improvised choreography. If I Could Feel is the first part of the developing Disco Spread series, which seeks to create further “disidentification”with visual cinema and cinematic characters/performances that are a part of queer, Black cultural canons (Muñoz 1999). The work transfigures the source image into many images of bright circles surrounded by concave shadows- gaps which deny access to the image while also indicating a space for which the image is possible.