Black noise is a multichannel video project and video installation series that questions what it means to exist within a space subtly shaped by the constant rebuilding and destruction of both culture and land, and asks who gets to tiptoe the line between appreciation and appropriation. 

White noise, although it is taught to us as abstract, calm, passive, quiet, and sophisticated, is in reality something that is loud, destructive, and rebuilds off the backs of the ill-fortunate. Black noise is a revolutionary act. Either seen as a distraction or destruction, when in reality it is loud. The ill-fortunate that exist outside of this white noise exist as a signal of confounding constraints;  constantly pushed down and attacked, yet produce blackness and “black noise”, black art, black music, black culture. “Black noise” is the reality of vibrations that can crack and disrupt culture, and of the “appeasing”, evasive white noise. 

So why is black noise seen as destructive, loud, and harsh while white noise isn’t? Looking at apartheid South Africa, how do we justify the injustices and atrocities done to the black South Africans, and how do we speak on the continuous benefits and riches that white South Africans achieve even post apartheid, post the destruction, and rebuilding post the continuous deceit and death. Through culture, certain figures are allowed to transcend the barriers between white and black space. Why are some, like David Bowie, allowed to cross over into other cultures and tiptoe the line between appropriation and appreciation? Why can he be allowed to speak on and exist within the black experience? Is it because of his basic acknowledgment of black people as human beings, or an appreciation of the culture more directly? Although he had an appreciation and was able to weave in and out of black culture, he was still a holder of white noise. He held within him the privilege of being able to exist within multiple languages.

Version one of the installation depicts a concrete slab with a self-portrait of the artist staring out into a natural landscape. What the artist is staring at is two records, suspended at eye level in the installation space, displaying archival video footage that calls into question what it means to exist within competing white and black noise and space.