WHY ARE THESE PLANTS HERE AND OTHER ONTOLOGICAL STRESS
Why are these plants here and other ontological stress is the name of the proposal commissioned to Teresa M.Stout @Softchaoss for the closing of the residence “Those Kids” during the Madrid Art Week in the context of ARCO Madrid in Matadero.
Interrogating how economic practices related to colonialism are deeply entangled with how black culture is viewed and consumed, this work is concerned with a theory of social entanglement in which what seems like individuals are actually emergent properties of a larger social field, in this case, the vestiges of empire.
Contesting the limited nature of market logic to explain social conditions, the excerpts presented are from the fields of technology, law, and music theory are accompanied by personal notes from the artist’s work as a legal theorist and a musician. They serve as a prompt for conversation to anyone interested in black sonic technologies that live in the metropolis of colonial states.
The sound design for this set to be a nod to often mismapped and undervalued genres of electronic music. Contesting Althusser’s theory of interpellation, (an idea that many pop artists invoke when they are accused of appropriation) the use of deconstructed, remixed and cover versions along with originals of various artists were used to present a literal set of black misinterpellated sounds. Misinterpellation here is presented as a possibility to complicate easy explanations of the fungibility of black culture in the western gaze connecting unseemingly connected social space.