Kahlil Robert Irving and Richard Munaba: Safetyfirst&Fantasies _ BLOCKCHAIN

Monday, June 1, 2020 at 12:00pm
Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN website

Constructed from found digital materials and presented online, Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN is a new collaborative work by Kahlil Robert Irving and Richard Munaba commissioned by the Center for the Arts which resonates with the dimensional possibilities of sampling—the musical technique of reorganizing or modifying previously recorded material to create something new. The interactive work is filled with details in constant motion. Even while the Coronavirus pandemic limits our physical connections with others, it opens an opportunity to reconsider how ideas are exchanged and communicated. The artists encapsulate some of the pressures of our experience in this piece by mimicking multiple browser windows—watching videos, video calling friends, scrolling through Twitter, listening to music, etc. The work plays with a heightened sense of fantasy, blending together the trauma, violence, and resistance that are already ubiquitously embedded within media and technology. ‘Safely’ viewed from a distance, Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN brings awareness to our moments of media consumption by reminding us simultaneously of the politics of our attention and its immediate commodification.

Read more about this work on the Center for the Arts blog.

Image: Kahlil Robert Irving and Richard Munaba, Safetyfirst&Fantasies_BLOCKCHAIN