Look at My African
Project Description:
Look at My African features clips from Donald Trump’s “Look at my African American” speech, footage from George Floyd’s death, Obama’s 2008 speech, the moment when they told LeBron James to “shut up and dribble,” and other clips that explore W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness. The project is inspired by the duality of twilight, referencing Rebecca Solnit’s term “entre le chien et le loup” to describe the ambiguity of twilight. Jonathan relates the concept to the experiences of marginalized Black and Indigenous people, metaphorically positioning them as children of the night. The project is a collage of various media, including video manipulation, photography, and sound design. Jonathan will use techniques like shooting from unusual angles, layering images, and playing with scale and repetition to create emotional contrast and highlight the struggle of marginalized communities.
Proposal:
Jumping from our “Walk at Twilight” assignment, I was really pulled to the duality of twilight, inhabiting parts both night and day. Rebecca Solnit uses the French term “entre le chien et le loup” (between the dog and the wolf) to describe the ambiguity of twilight. I think the duality of twilight was more significant to me because I feel a lot of relation from that atmospheric space to every realm of my own personal spaces. I like to think marginalized Black and Indigenous people of color are children of the night and that society has left us in the dark. The capitalist bourgeoisie has left us with uncertainties of survival, just as the sun left uncertainties in the night.
When Rebecca Solnit used the term “entre le chien et le loup” (between the dog and the wolf), in my perspective, the dog is seen in the day, and the wolf is seen at night. So, at twilight, when Rebecca Solnit synthesizes that you could see one or the other at this time, I believe you could also see both. Even though marginalized bodies have been banished to the night, we continue to fight and organize our way to the day, thus placing marginalized people in a twilight era. Twilight is metaphorical for the fight marginalized bodies lead every day. Children of the night will continue to fight to enter light spaces where they can shine. As we attempt to bask in the rays of the sun, we are met with the dark uncertainties of our marginalizations.
Project Execution:
I will manifest my project through various mediums such as:
Downloading videos from the internet and manipulating/collaging them in Premiere (e.g., news publications, blogs, vlogs, live feeds).
Manipulating found or photographed images in Photoshop (e.g., personal archives, news publications, photo shoots).
Shooting video using a phone or a camera checked out from IMS.
I plan to get this footage and manipulate it in various ways such as:
Shooting video from unusual angles, different depth of fields, or extremely close perspectives, so that the subject matter is made less obvious.
Overlaying/layering multiple different images.
Inverting, cropping, rotating images.
Moving images in and out of frame or animating.
Playing with scale, pattern, repetition, or other design principles.
Adding a variety of sounds that create different emotions and contrast emotions.
Feel free to copy this for your website or any other use! Let me know if you need further adjustments.
