WASSA, 1989, 3 min.
Presented with Electronic Arts Intermix
Sidewalk Cinema is an opportunity for the community to gather for a socially-distant and masked viewing of a film on Fridays at sunset, approximately 8PM EDT, in front of Maysles Documentary Center.
This screening was rescheduled to June 16.
Films include:
WASSA, 1989, 3 min.
Shot in Burkina Faso, Wassa, which translates “come out and play”in Wolof, is a transcultural music video that unfolds with lush imagery and the evocative music of Moustapha Thiombiano. Jones creates a dreamlike vision, capturing the vibrancy and sensuality of the everyday. This rhythmically textured work is part of his exploration of African diaspora culture through nonverbal storytelling and a transcultural language of sound and image construction — the development of codes based on what Jones terms "emotional progressions and an African sensorium."
JEMBE, 1989, 3 min.
In Jembe, Jones transposes African visual motifs and image construction to the electronic medium. Vibrant images, rendered as abstracted electronic color and form, are fused with the dynamic music of Coulibaly Aboubacar. This vivid, impressionistic piece explores the development of codes based on what Jones terms "emotional progressions and an African sensorium," without dependence on specific language comprehension.
DREAMKEEPER, 1990, 5 min.
A document of the artist's three-channel audio/video installation of the same title, Dreamkeeper is the second part of Jones' ongoing transcultural dialogue, a commentary on the emerging global African diaspora culture. Here he uses a drum to signify the link among diaspora peoples, stating, "The drum, the sound, is the translator of the unseen, to guide the seeker." Using footage and ambient sounds recorded in Angola and Burkina Faso, he explores what he terms a "narrative structure based on emotional progressions." Dreamkeeper continues Jones' search for images and sounds that speak to African diaspora cultures throughout the world. The drummers and music in the tape are indigenous to Bobo-Diolaso, Burkina Faso, West Africa.
PARADIGM SHIFT, 1992, 1 min.
A lyrical meditation, Paradigm Shift was created as part of "TRANS-VOICES", an international multi-media public art project that was conceived to reflect a broad spectrum of cultural diversity — national, racial, and ethnic — that characterizes both France and America today. Created by seven American and seven French artists, the video spots operate as trans-cultural investigations, questioning the validity of national identity, exploring the origins of cultural ideology, and charging the ethics of government entities. The spots communicate messages about the fundamental social, political, economic and ecological shifts that mark the close of the 20th century.
Produced by the American Center, Paris, in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Public Art Fund.
MIRRORS AND SMOKE (excerpt), 1998, 3 min.
Mirrors & Smoke: A Non-Linear Performance In Virtual Space developed from a collaboration between Jones, choreographer and dancer Ralph Lemon, composer John D. Mitchell, and digital artist and scholar Katherine Milton. Building from journals kept by Lemon in his travels in Haiti, West Africa, and India and videotapes of Lemon performing in various locations, Jones and Milton designed evocative 3D environments. This video excerpts the navigation of an interactive CD-ROM, allowing the viewer to explore the performance in any order.
IN THE SWEET BYE & BYE, 2007, 3 min.
This video documents In the Sweet Bye & Bye, a 3D exhibition built in the on-line virtual world Second Life. Bye & Bye takes ideas and materials from the book Lissen Here!, a collaboration between the artist and his mother, Dorothy Mallory Jones. Jones writes: “The narrative threads and paths are discovered in the overlap of images and texts, and in the compositions of planes and angles that form/transform as the avatar POV shifts. The narratives are on three levels – personal/family anecdote, communal lore, and allegory.”
PARAGON SHOW LOUNGE, 2008, 2 min.
Paragon Show Lounge is an early example of Jones’ meticulous reconstructions of the environments of Black life in interwar Chicago, a project that has been the core of his practice for over a decade. This video depicts the Paragon Show Lounge, a 3D space built in Second Life that harkens back to the jazz and blues clubs of the ‘20s and ‘30s, set to music by Junior Walker and The All-Stars.
PEARL’S BEAUTY PARLOR, 2020, 4 min.
WELCOME TO THE COOK COUNTY JAIL, 2020, 2 min.
TIME MACHINE: BRONZEVILLE BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS, 2020, 12 min.
Time Machine: Bronzeville Between the World Wars, a work-in-progress in virtual reality, weaves tales of speculative fiction with historical documentation in an immersive and interactive experience of the South Side during the Chicago Renaissance.
