Exquisite Cacophony , 2015, Video

Medium
Single-channel colour video with sound.
Dimensions
Duration: 35 minutes.
Exquisite Cacophony, (film still), 2015. Single-channel colour video with sound. 35 minutes. Photo: Maya Bailey
Exquisite Cacophony, (film still), 2015. Single-channel colour video with sound. Photo: Maya Bailey
Exquisite Cacophony, 2015. Installation view: Manchester Art Gallery, UK, 2018. Photo: Mike Pollard

Invited by curator Okwui Enwezor for the 56th Venice Biennale, Exquisite Cacophony is a film of a performance by two vocalists; Astronautalis and Elaine Mitchener, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 2015.

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Developed around acts of improvisation - as that which invites the unexpected and reveals the unforeseen, Exquisite Cacophony explores the tensions, slippages and revelations that result from a completely improvised exchange between freestyle rapper Astronautalis who charms members of an invited audience into dialogues about gender, sexual and racial politics and popular culture, until his banter is disrupted by the poetic force of Elaine Mitchener. The spontaneous interplay between the performers reverberates between utterance and language, producing a cacophony, a discordant mixture of sounds and words that rails against all notions of the familiar.

Related theme: Sound / Singing

Related theme: Performance

Related theme: Participatory / Collaboration