What I’m about to do here might seem simple to you but for me is extremely hard. I have a habit of burying or throwing away things that are old or that I feel are not polished & perfect. The danger in that is you might loose perspective on what you have accomplished. You also run the risk of burning out & feeling you constantly need to start from zero. Despite the numerous awards I won for this as a teen I have not screened this in several years and as I write this my stomach is hurting at the thought of you seeing it but I need to do this for me. Thank you for the opportunity to be courageous. Pierre Bennu.
Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu takes the Afrofuturism genre one step further with her short SciFi film “Pumzi.” The dystopic flick is set in an enclosed, underground future society, “35 years after water wars have torn the world apart,” and chronicles the efforts of one young woman to bring life back to the surface of the planet.
Unique opportunity to see this groundbreaking, award-winning film this sunday in Brooklyn, NY — at a free screening hosted by mtkalla keaton sunday evening, april 18th. details below.
“Pumzi” Brooklyn Screening @ Le Grand Dakar (Grand ave and Clifton Pl)
Sunday April 18th @ 8pm.
Please RVSP via text (917 771 2747)
I’ve been doing some soul searching, I’m finding some good stuff. I’m being pushed reluctantly into the foreground, a place that i purposefully abandoned several years ago. However situations keep occurring where my hermit tendencies don’t serve me. I am also being informed that my style of perfectionism doesn’t serve me. My art is like a cockroach in that for every one piece of mine that you see there are about 30 that you don’t see. Growing up I used to throw away sketch books, rhyme books and journals because they were not “perfect.” It wasn’t till i got married that i really started to save my work & even then many things never saw the light of day. I learned that just because something comes easy to me doesn’t mean it lacks value. So here i am unwilling to put things out there that are not “perfect” but in desperate need to share and make room for all the new stuff. The first challenge I put to myself is to be “out there” more. I’ve decided to do so by starting a Video Blog (which i believe is called a V-log). It is tentatively titled “2 minutes with your imaginary friend Pierre!” I begin shooting later this week…see you soon..well…you’ll see me soon but you…you get it…so yeah.
Duke professor Mark Anthony Neal and Grammy winning producer 9th Wonder (pictured left) are using SunMoonChild – amazing song by imani uzuri, amazing video by Pierre Bennu – as part of the midterm exam for their course, ’sampling soul.’ The course is about black cultural production and the tradition of borrowing/remixing/sampling and how it all relates to today’s legal issues of intellectual property rights and copyright law. Since YouTube just removed SunMoonChild after three years this issue cuts particularly close for us.
He’s made the midterm public on his blog to encourage a wider dialogue and wider exposure to the ideas. Stop by and give it a read, comment if you can! )
–jb.
As a DJ, an artist, a sometime teacher, and the son of an academic, I will never get tired of marveling at the intersection of HipHop and academia. It’s an honor to have my work thought of as contributing to this discussion.
I just realized that since YouTube took down this video & i reposted a higher quality version on Vimeo that i did NOT post it here on exittheapple.com.
I was in the midst of writing an essay on “fair use” and the future of media when i found myself rehashing ideas that were already explored and discussed by those far more eloquent than myself. i will post links to their books and articles later until then take a deep breath, open your heart & eyes to this digital altar piece i created for the artist Imani Uzuri back in 2007 entitled ‘SUN MOON CHILD’
This is the kind of thing they don’t make GI JOE characters of. This is a documentary about WW2 vets whos job it was to uses their art & performance as deception. Having done a movie loosely related to this sort of art as a weapon I was immediately intrigued. The filmmakers are still trying to raise money to complete the project. Check out the trailer then visit the ghost army website for more info.
“The mission of this top-secret unit was to create a traveling road show to deceive the Germans about the location and strength of American troops on battlefields across Europe. From Normandy to the Rhine, they staged 20 battlefield deceptions, employing an array of inflatables (tanks, trucks, jeeps, airplanes), sound trucks, phony radio transmissions and even playacting to fool the enemy. Like actors in a repertory theater, the men of the 23rd had to ask themselves with each mission: Who are we this week? Whats our story? Then they would put on a show, with the Nazis as their audience.”
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