November 3rd 2018 – Black A(n)thena (Kosmos), performance by Aubry & Bikoro, HKW Berlin

 
Black A(n)thena (Kosmos), performance by Gilles Aubry & Nathalie Anguezomo M’ba Bikoro

Festival Ohrenmensch, as part of the Radiophonic Culture exhibition, House of World Cultures (HKW), Berlin

Black A(n)thena (Kosmos) explores the link between radio reception and piracy as a form of untraining the ear and decanonising forms of knowledge. The project understands signals of frequency and message through coding anti-colonial resistance knowledge often embraced in anti-colonial African & Diaspora movements in the context of Tanzania (1914), Gabon (1960) and Mozambique (1979). Many of these messages, notably produced in Berlin by the Black Diaspora (1930’s), shared visionary strategies and warnings on colonial struggles and racism. Pirated from existing radio frequencies, the artists explore sound transmissions of piracy through biomythography and sonic debris of colonial German settlements (1914) in Gabon through the interceptions of nature as a place of resistance through an economy and ecology of darkness; what moves in secrecy and returns. In this work nature transmits testimonies and warnings as device for the local struggle of a children’s former labor banana plantation in Mimbeng against a German female Goddess ‘Camissonae’ whose mirage manifestation is inspired by early 19th century German literature.

Info: https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2018/radiophonic_spaces/ohrenmensch/der_ohrenmensch.php