Introduction

Mendi and Keith Obadike are interdisciplinary artists. They incorporate sound, video, texts, artifacts and public spaces in their art. Their practice is collaborative, with Mendi’s background more text and speech driven and Keith’s practice being more sound driven. But both of their practices are steeped in history, politics, anthropology, religion, economics, music, and literature. Their public works are essentially giant installations, instead of constructing a stage or a display that incorporates sound and light, they use public space, buildings, historical sites as their installations.

Thesis

Mendi and Keith’s interdisciplinary art duplicates the conditions in which racial judgments form in the thought process, the way seemingly disparate data as perceived by the senses from our everyday experiences are neurologically connected and gives birth to racist judgments. Through duplication of conditions by formalistic manipulation and juxtaposition of data, Mendi and Keith’s work sow the conditions for the viewer/listener to traverse the same thought process but rather than arriving at the conclusion of racist judgments, instead, question the formation and role of racism in the status quo.

Mendi and Keith recognize that racism is an artificial and irrational construct with random associations that cross between different senses, within sources from politics, art, economics, literature, music, history and common objects. These disorganized associations lead to random clusters of recognition. The artificial environment they construct duplicate that process of racism but diverts the conclusion of racism to one of elucidation and questioning towards a hopeful utopia or at least a society cognizant of its fallacies. The Obadikes called it racial logic. (1)

Reasons and Processes, Generally

The majority of Obadikes’ art is about racism, Black history, and Black presence. They are advocates for awareness and understanding of the legacy of racism, where Blacks are in current society, and the need for Black history to be integrated into American history. Their work comes from conversations together over the years, from continuance dialog from ideas that came from listening, awareness, and paying attention. The recognition that music can be spatial and architectural runs through their work. Because of that, they’ve incorporated public space into their work with site specific sound installation. Working on many projects at once, they’re able to draw from seemingly incongruous elements to make a cohesive work because they don’t think linearly. They have a network overview of concepts that’s enhanced and encouraged by their collaborative process, each with their own perspective. (2)

“lull: a sleep temple”

“lull, a sleep temple,” originated from their need for rest after going through and still going through the pandemic. (3) And if they needed it, so did their fellow human beings. Their process involved research in Egyptian culture where sleep temples served as a place for rest and meditation. They also researched the Igbo culture, which is Keith’s heritage where dreams are a way to connect to a place beyond our conscious minds. Their research included musical history as well, including 1960’s and 1970’s transformational music of John and Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. They also researched other sounds that reach another level or place of consciousness.

They used acoustic and electro-acoustic live instruments, an old Juno 106 and Moog 32 analog synths, and vocals to make their sounds for the project. First, they recorded multi-tracked pieces where they layered guitars, piano, Rhodes, bass and vocal harmonies. At times, they would combine bowing on their bass with cello from an orchestral kit. They also drew from archival recordings of Keith multitracking phrases and songs to 24-inch analog tape. Then they’d stretch out the recordings. They stayed in triadic harmony to keep the sound simple. They composed in chunks that were assembled into the large piece. After assemblage, they performed over the large sections in a dub-like fashion with vocal and processing choices made contemporaneously.

In composing the text, Mendi researched and drew ideas from a book written in 1275 BC on dream interpretation as well as an ancient story from 1401 BC. Because their intended audience included the conscious and those lapsing into or already unconscious, they used repetition. Lull is an example of their use of sound to transport their listener to other planes and levels of awareness.

American Cypher

American Cypher was a project about DNA, stories of how identity is encoded and the role of DNA. (4) For “Stereo Helix for Sally Hemings,” part of the American Cypher project, The Obadikes researched Thomas Jefferson and Sally Heming’s story by interviewing the descendants of Jefferson and Hemings as well as the staff at Monticello. They researched the artifacts at Monticello and discovered the last known possession of Hemming was a servant’s bell, given by Jefferson. Keith recorded the ringing of the bell and used it as part of the sound. They also used numbers from Thomas Jefferson’s and Sally Hemings’ descendants’ DNA to tune the bell recording. The DNA analysis gave them a pitch to set for the composition.(5) They mixed the score with the bell ringing and field recordings of ambient sounds from Monticello. They then used movable speakers and projected the sound in the stairwells in Monticello. From the use of artifact, oral history, DNA sequence numbers, and architecture, Stereo Helix is a network of neural experiences giving the viewer/listener a haunting sense of what came before and what continues to linger within the backdrop of racism in America.

Compass Song

Mendi and Keith created an art app to engage with Time Square.(6) The original idea came from them visiting Time Square, watching how people occupy the space, and noticing how people walked with their headphones on. They wanted to give the people walking through Time Square something to listen to during their walk to give meaning to the place they’re inhabiting.

They researched the history of Time Square, back to when Indigenous people lived on the land. During the time they spent walking around the space, they realized it was a crossroad. With the idea of crossroads, came the concept of navigation and the role of the compass. They liked the idea of a compass in a more mystical way. They recorded ambient sounds around Time Square. The songs and verses of myths and stories were all drawn from their research on the history of Time Square, how the land in that location was used hundreds of years ago.

When the app user walks through Time Square, they’d hear recordings of sounds of the city, songs, and stories. One constant song throughout the app is the song “Walk with Me,” an old spiritual that was sung at protest marches during the civil rights movement. This project is an example of their use of sounds to create space; their use of space to enhance the sense of time, and their conceptual use of landmark.

Number Station

Mendi and Keith became interested in stop and frisk statistics when a whistleblower cop recorded his superior pressuring him about conducting more stops.(7) Their interest gave rise to Numbers Station. Number station is about the number of stop and frisks from each precinct in NYC from ACLU. Mendi and Keith took the statistics and turned the numbers into sound because they wanted the listener to “feel” the numbers, feel something that’s abstract in a visceral way.

In their research they engaged with the notion of pliancy and fallacy of data. For instance, they noticed missing data regarding police shootings in certain precincts. In others, they noticed that stop and frisk data have been massaged by under and over reporting. The peaks and valley in the recordings gave a sense of the number of stop and frisks.

From the translation of stop and frisk numbers into hertz, the listener can feel the synergistic energy of each precinct. The sine tones were generated by the statistics. For example, if 134 people were stopped by one precinct in a month, then they turned that number into 134 hertz. They overlapped the hertz variations with voices reading the statistics. They also researched The Red Record by Ida B. Wells. It’s a tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1894. They incorporated the statistics from that book into the sounds as well.

Conclusion

By duplicating the network of conditions that give rise to racist attitudes, Mendi and Keith reveal that humans experience the world more synergistically than realized. Considering the reality of people suffering from racism in the world yet the reality remains abstract from those free from such suffering, the tool of synergy while complex, gives hope to awakenings for a public that occupies public spaces. In our world where people seem to exist in extremes, people exposed to sights and sounds of racial logic in public spaces seem all the more important as part of the process of reconciliation.

For more information about their wonderful art, their website is http://blacksoundart.com/about

Footnotes

1. Mendi and Keith Obadike, An interview with Mendi and Keith Obadike, Aria Dean, Rhizome, 05/17/2017

2. Mendi and Keith Obadike, Artists on Art, Listen Notes, Lenore Metrick-Chen, 04/14/2017

3. Mendi and Keith Obadike, 5 questions to Mendi and Keith Obadike, Tristan McKay I Care If You Listen, 4/28/2021

5. Mendi and Keith Obadike, Lenore Metrick-Chen, Artists on Art, Listen Notes, 04/14/2017

6. Mendi and Keith Obadike, SO! Amplifies: Mendi and Keith Obadike and Sounding Race in America, Sounding Out! 10/06/2014

7. Mendi and Keith Obadike, In Conversation with Mendi and Keith Obadike about ‘Compass Song,’ Hannah Lee, Time Square Arts

Bibliography

Dean, Aria, #000 is a Color: An interview with Mendi and Keith Obadike, Rhizome, 05/17/2017

Guevara, Julian, Mendi and Keith Obadike Interview, Rragazine

Lee, Hannah, In Conversation with Mendi and Keith Obadike about ‘Compass Song’ Time Square Arts

McKay, Tristan, 5 questions to Mendi and Keith Obadike, I Care If You Listen, 4/28/2021

Metrick-Chen, Lenore, Mendi and Keith Obadike, Artists on Art, Listen Notes

Roe, Tom, Mendi and Keith Obadike discuss their “Numbers Station” exhibition, Wave Farm, 09/12/2015

The Burton Wire, American Cypher: Mendi and Keith Obadike Talk Race, DNA, and Digital Art, 06/08/2013