Dates:
14 Aug 2021
People:
Location:
Birmingham Open Media
ICF hosted a study day at Birmingham Open Media (BOM) as part of the public programme for UP:RISE, a new groundbreaking nationwide Augmented Reality public artwork by artist Baff Akoto concerned with the pathology, history and underlying drivers of English civil unrest in the digital age – exhibiting nationwide from August 6th 2021 to mark 10 years since the civil unrest of summer 2011 announced the arrival of 21st Century Britain. The study day at BOM was curated by Candice Nembhard and featured presentations by Harun Morrison and Taiwo Ogunyinka.
PROGRAMME
10:00 – Explore UP:RISE exhibition, meet & greet
11:00 – Artist and writer Harun Morrison will present a talk that explores the representation of police in a selection of U.S. hip hop videos made post-Black Lives Matter (from 2013 onwards). This talk aims to identify the police in the Black imaginary and recurring tropes including supernatural possession and blurring of identity.
12:30 – Taiwo Ogunyinka will lead a workshop responding to the understanding of the 2011 riots as a turning point in the relationship between digitisation and modernity. Through reading and discussion of speculative sci-fi poetry, we will use art as a site for the imagining of what further possibilities could exist for social justice and organising.
13:35 – Open forum discussion with all participants
14:00 – Lunch
The event was free and was perfect for creatives, students, academics and professionals interested in urbanism, sociology, digital tech, psychology, protest, public art, youth culture and more.
UP:RISE re-casts August 2011 as a key formative moment of 21st Century Britain. 2011’s uprisings were widely reported as the senseless sacking and looting of property by mindless youth fuelled by opportunistic material greed and BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) encryption. UP:RISE takes a critical and provocative position, re-examining this portrayal and the legacies of August 2011 on the past 10 years. The work and its nationwide public exhibition also reflects on Britain’s postwar tradition of violent civil unrest and community uprisings sparked by police violence, fanned by social deprivation and racial animosity. With access to public space and social life restricted by the pandemic, UP:RISE seeks to expand the notion of what public art can be. By engaging digitally with non-traditional audiences that previously have been excluded from such conversations, UP:RISE marks a step change in the conception of public and community art practice in the digital era. Baff Akoto’s AR artwork and accompanying nationwide public exhibition reflects on the UK’s past, present and future. In rendering this new model of public art, Akoto encourages social critique and community engagement by exploring charged social histories while speculating around our shared digital futures.
Baff Akoto is an artist and film-maker living in London. Akoto’s work has been exhibited at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and at the British Film Institute (BFI) in their Experimenta strand for ‘works by artists that revolutionise and reshape our vision of the cinematic moving image’. As a director and producer Baff began as a documentary film-maker, before going on to direct network TV drama at Channel 4 and the BBC, leading to his inclusion on Idris Elba’s BBC New Talent Hotlist. In 2018 Screen International tipped Akoto as a “Star of Tomorrow”. The most recent feature film he has produced QUEEN OF GLORY (from actor and first time director Nana Mensah) will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021. Having forged a path within visual arts with mentoring from John Akomfrah and the Oscarwinning Asif Kapadia, Baff’s work embraces the fluidity of visual grammar, notions of plurality, (self) perceptions and societal implications of human bodily movement (disability, ritual, dance). Most recently Baff’s work explores the artistic potential of VR/AR as he becomes increasingly concerned with how the digital revolution might avoid the same prejudices, exclusions and inequalities which arose from our industrial and colonial eras.
BOM is a centre for art, technology and science dedicated to creative innovation with purpose. Located in central Birmingham, our gallery is free to enter and presents cutting edge digital artworks and exhibitions that spark debate about technology and scientific progress. BOM is dedicated to positive social impact in all that we do. Our exhibitions and events explore topical issues in digital culture and science which impact on human lives. Our education work engages excluded children, young people and adults in creative technology programmes, with a particular interest in neurodiversity and technology. BOM is born from hacker culture. But unlike other hackspaces that are filled with tools and operate on a membership model, our building is publicly accessible with free exhibitions and events.
People:
ICF hosted a study day at Birmingham Open Media (BOM) as part of the public programme for UP:RISE, a new groundbreaking nationwide Augmented Reality public artwork by artist Baff Akoto concerned with the pathology, history and underlying drivers of English civil unrest in the digital age – exhibiting nationwide from August 6th 2021 to mark 10 years since the civil unrest of summer 2011 announced the arrival of 21st Century Britain. The study day at BOM was curated by Candice Nembhard and featured presentations by Harun Morrison and Taiwo Ogunyinka.
PROGRAMME
10:00 – Explore UP:RISE exhibition, meet & greet
11:00 – Artist and writer Harun Morrison will present a talk that explores the representation of police in a selection of U.S. hip hop videos made post-Black Lives Matter (from 2013 onwards). This talk aims to identify the police in the Black imaginary and recurring tropes including supernatural possession and blurring of identity.
12:30 – Taiwo Ogunyinka will lead a workshop responding to the understanding of the 2011 riots as a turning point in the relationship between digitisation and modernity. Through reading and discussion of speculative sci-fi poetry, we will use art as a site for the imagining of what further possibilities could exist for social justice and organising.
13:35 – Open forum discussion with all participants
14:00 – Lunch
The event was free and was perfect for creatives, students, academics and professionals interested in urbanism, sociology, digital tech, psychology, protest, public art, youth culture and more.
UP:RISE re-casts August 2011 as a key formative moment of 21st Century Britain. 2011’s uprisings were widely reported as the senseless sacking and looting of property by mindless youth fuelled by opportunistic material greed and BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) encryption. UP:RISE takes a critical and provocative position, re-examining this portrayal and the legacies of August 2011 on the past 10 years. The work and its nationwide public exhibition also reflects on Britain’s postwar tradition of violent civil unrest and community uprisings sparked by police violence, fanned by social deprivation and racial animosity. With access to public space and social life restricted by the pandemic, UP:RISE seeks to expand the notion of what public art can be. By engaging digitally with non-traditional audiences that previously have been excluded from such conversations, UP:RISE marks a step change in the conception of public and community art practice in the digital era. Baff Akoto’s AR artwork and accompanying nationwide public exhibition reflects on the UK’s past, present and future. In rendering this new model of public art, Akoto encourages social critique and community engagement by exploring charged social histories while speculating around our shared digital futures.
Baff Akoto is an artist and film-maker living in London. Akoto’s work has been exhibited at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and at the British Film Institute (BFI) in their Experimenta strand for ‘works by artists that revolutionise and reshape our vision of the cinematic moving image’. As a director and producer Baff began as a documentary film-maker, before going on to direct network TV drama at Channel 4 and the BBC, leading to his inclusion on Idris Elba’s BBC New Talent Hotlist. In 2018 Screen International tipped Akoto as a “Star of Tomorrow”. The most recent feature film he has produced QUEEN OF GLORY (from actor and first time director Nana Mensah) will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021. Having forged a path within visual arts with mentoring from John Akomfrah and the Oscarwinning Asif Kapadia, Baff’s work embraces the fluidity of visual grammar, notions of plurality, (self) perceptions and societal implications of human bodily movement (disability, ritual, dance). Most recently Baff’s work explores the artistic potential of VR/AR as he becomes increasingly concerned with how the digital revolution might avoid the same prejudices, exclusions and inequalities which arose from our industrial and colonial eras.
BOM is a centre for art, technology and science dedicated to creative innovation with purpose. Located in central Birmingham, our gallery is free to enter and presents cutting edge digital artworks and exhibitions that spark debate about technology and scientific progress. BOM is dedicated to positive social impact in all that we do. Our exhibitions and events explore topical issues in digital culture and science which impact on human lives. Our education work engages excluded children, young people and adults in creative technology programmes, with a particular interest in neurodiversity and technology. BOM is born from hacker culture. But unlike other hackspaces that are filled with tools and operate on a membership model, our building is publicly accessible with free exhibitions and events.
Dates:
14 Aug 2021
Location:
Birmingham Open Media
