Rijksakademie Open Studios: 2025
The voice of a British man narrates a film produced in the 1950’s describing the moment when Nairobi transitions from a small town into a city. This was made by the Colonial Film Unit (CFU); a mobile cinema outfit established by the British colonial government. Its task was to produce instructional or educational films that were also instrumental in spreading propaganda while presenting African audiences as passive & simple minded.
In an effort to counter-balance this depiction of progress, the dominant voice of the narrator is punctuated by machines at work and cattle and sheep roaming in present day Nairobi. The choice to not show footage of the film embraces refusal as a device that recognises a system that renders one illegible and unintelligible. Instead, the focus shifts towards image construction through weighing, measuring and searching for the image and thinking about the logistics involved in setting up an imperfect cinema. The studio becomes a support structure that gives an open exploratory quality to the work unlike the didactic tone of the films made by the CFU. This propels the work towards a future abstraction with new active audiences.
Throughout the search for the image, distance is warped and displacement occurs through reconfigured periscopes that reflect back the studio in distorted, illusionary and multi-dimensional ways. In the end, the image constructed remains elusive as an immeasurable volume and a weight whose balance cannot be determined nor reconciled with.
Technical specs & details:
-Stop-motion drawing of a rotating falling wheel projected on lithography limestones
-Arduino controlled cardboard box on the floor. The movement of the box is triggered by two slide projectors after every 24 projections to imply 24fps. (What’s in the box! #7)
-Arduino programmed motorized pulley system with weights & diagrams
-Laser-cut MDF periscope prototypes
-2 camcorders for live-feed imagery connected to 2 monitors
-Wooden studio chairs; one with large speaker hooked underneath it
-Mp3 controllers with additional sound amplification produced using a cast-iron kettle
-8hrs: Charcoal and graphite drawings rubbed against one studio wall
-Metal bar, clamps, steel threads, aluminum brackets, hemp rope & chain
Links to audio transcripts featured in the Open studios
Rijksakademie Open Studios: May 22-25 , 2025
All images courtesy of the artist
©Jackie Karuti
