Stream "Hands Performance" on Black Public Media’s YouTube channel
AI is coming to client Black Public Media's series AfroPoP Digital Shorts. The monthly shorts series celebrates Pride Month with an AI dance party with the film "Hands Performance." It’s Black Queer American Sign Language (which embraces Black and queer vernacular) meets vogue dancing meets flex dancing and hot, hot, hot! The star of the film is an AI that acclaimed Oakland director Rashaad Newsome created named Being the Digital Griot, an AI in a non-binary robot body, who journeys through space as they transition seamlessly between signing and dance, their movements expressing a uniquely Black and Queer non-verbal vernacular.
"Hands Performance" takes its title from the well-known element of vogue fem, highlighting a dancer's ability to tell a story with their hands and showcasing their musicality. The film continues Newsome's exploration of mapping Black cultural production as a form of movement research, data storage, and collective wayfinding.
Working with a team of Black Queer ASL interpreters, various vogue fem performers, flex dancers, and motion capture technologists, Newsome translated his original poetry into a movement dataset exhibiting the uniquely Black and Queer aspects of sign language.
Newsome then integrated this movement into Being the Digital Griot, a non-binary Artificial Intelligence Newsome premiered in his exhibition “Assembly” at the Park Avenue Armory Drill Hall in February 2022. (The New York Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/arts/rashaad-newsome-assembly-exhibit.html.) The film combines stunning visuals from a speculative future with a highly energetic score filled with booming bass, synthetic snares, snaps, claps, and glitchy computer sounds, resulting in a futuristic sonic experience.
