Xenogenesis May Virtual Salon Playcast

On Thursday 28 May 2020 the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU hosted a virtual salon in support of their recently concluded installation Xenogenesis, which was curated by the UK-based, artist-led collective The Otolith Group. The salon was hosted by Enjoli Moon and Nontsi Mutiti of the ICA, and featured Otolith Group co-founders Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun discussing the context and history of their newest video work INFINITY minus Infinity. Mikemetic was commissioned to create one of his playcasts to provide textual context to topics within the film, as well sonic expansion towards meaningful engagement with the future sounds of the Diaspora.

The concept of a colonial power being so expansive that “the sun never sets” on its territories has been glamorized many times over in recorded history. In their varied heights, the imperialistic global powers of Mongol, Spanish, and Russian dynasties among others have claimed sprawling global dominions deemed worthy of that distinction. However, in terms of percentage of the globe under its dominion, no entity in the history of the world has surpassed the amount of square miles under the reign of the British Empire. At its height in 1920, 26.35% of the world fell under the Union Jack, and this expanded reach across continents provided an oppressive umbrella under which King George V claimed massive riches and resources. 

At the end of the second World War in late 1945, the United Kingdom realized its native national workforce had been decimated by the high death toll that had come with the six-year military confrontation. Part of the country’s plan to remedy this problem was to tap into the native populations of British colonies, and bring them to the UK as laborers, with the promise of equal citizenship and the economic opportunities that came with it. This first wave of courted immigrants were 500 Jamaican men, women, and children that arrived in 1948 as “the Windrush Generation”, so named because of the ship, MV Empire Windrush, that they arrived on. Britain's expanded immigration policy lasted until 1971, and provided the Kingdom with a rich foundation of cultural diversity that emerged as one of its strongest cultural assets at the end of the 20th century.

The Ad Infinitum playlist taps into some of the modern complications for the Windrush Generation as reflected in the recently ubiquitous headlines and revelations depicting their ongoing mistreatment at the hands of British authorities. The Otolith Group’s 2020 film INFINITY minus Infinity is a point of connection as well because it sutures the Windrush Generation to the UK’s shameful history of reparations gone wrong in 1833 where slave-owners were handed today’s equivalent of 17bn pounds to free their enslaved, while those freed laborers received nothing Kodwo Oshun, one half of The Otolith Group, has contributed songs of relevance from Klein, Hype WIlliams, and Fredric Rzewski to the Ad Infinitum playlist to assist in bringing proper context to the direct and indirect resilience of expression and culture that endures throughout the Diaspora and beyond. The other included artists also present meticulously crafted statements of identity woven within their works, providing both figurative and literal liberation for listeners on waves of sound, powerful as those that propelled the first Windrush immigrants to the Essex shore.

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