The first of his pieces that really
intrigued me was The Conductor. Rashaad Newsome teamed up with radio stations
Hot 97 and 105.1 to investigate hiphop culture through informed surveys.
Newsome was interested in painting a portrait of hiphop culture over time. He compiled 6 movements total using
repetition, symbols and icons of hip-hop. Through his movements, he paired body
language, dance moves, money, grillz, alcohol and other hip-hop culture aspects
to the beat and sounds of the popular songs. The piece became not only a study
of hip-hop culture trends, but also the technologic advancements overtime. He
played with the juxtapositions of different aspect ratios and video quality to
also comment on the technologic changes and influences. What interested me even
more so than the video editing and surveying, was his collaboration with current
hip-hop artists in the installation. Newsome would invite hip-hop artists to
perform in the 4 channel space with the video projected on the walls and over
the artist. Mykki Blanco, was the artist he had asked to premiere with his
piece. Blanco was also a hip-hop figure that stood for gay rappers. The
experience of being in the space without a doubt was better than viewing it via
video but I was still able to sense the presence that Newsome was able to
create. Newsome wants to continue the
piece with new artists to continue to comment on the growth of the hip-hop
culture.
Newsome shared with us that the
future of this piece will be in the public domain in the midnight moment series
in Times Square. He is inviting four performers to come over the span of that
month including Naz, Jay Electronica, and even Raekwon from Wu-Tang Clan. I
think it adds another dimension to his work to incorporate live performances.
It not only keeps the piece new and alive but it show cases the current hip-hop
culture. Newsome, also has plans to utilize the technology of our age. He plans
to create an app that viewers can then go on, to let them know which location
they can watch the performance on the screens in the city. I am intrigued in
his acceptance of using old video footage, alongside current artists and
current technology. It would be interesting to see the piece 20 years from now
with an artist of that time. Who knows what the hip-hop culture will be like at
that time? And who knows what the quality of film will be like then or the
future of hip-hop videos will be? The component of popular culture,
collaboration, time, and archiving really interests me in his work.
Another piece I really enjoyed was Five. Newsome developed software to
track the x and y coordinates of the human body dancing. He then, used the
coordinates from his software to generate codes to ultimately create drawings
of movement. Newsome was interested in archiving the dance known as voguing and
it’s culture. Voguing is a traditional part of ballroom culture that primarily
was done by drag queens performing identify.
It was a type of dance, which I had never heard of before. He emphasized
that he wanted to bring to life sonically, the movements the dancers were doing
physically. I was blown away by the use of technology and collaboration yet
again. Unfortunately, we ran over and out of time to have a Q&A but I am
interested to see how his use of software continues to play in his work.
Although analog work will always be there, I am excited to see the new merge
between science, math, technology and art as it continues to grow.
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