Artist and Sound Designer Osadolor Explores Remixing as a Tool to Transform Culture

The low resolution and opacity of Nigerian American artist Osadolor’s audiovisual work provide Blackqueer folks the agency to roam and remain pixelated, shaky, blurry, glitchy, noisy, distorted, and elusive through the messy flux of self-realisation. Osadolor’s multidisciplinary practice proposes Afropresentist modes to reimagine the self, community, and our relationship with cultural memory, the everyday present, and envisionings of the future.

The manners in which early-age Nollywood movies abstract everyday life beyond the rigid confines of reality inspire how Osadolor works to see, hear, and feel Blackqueerness. Following the release of their limited edition STROKE_MY_EGO_RE.MIXED CD, Something Curated exclusively premiere’s the artist’s new film, STROKE_MY_EGO_RE.MIXED_06_08_2023_19.13.m4a. The below are Osadolor’s words.

a coming of age, but irl continues to be a space for my thoughts around media, music, desirability, love, childhood, spirituality, and so much more to flow with an inconclusive and nondirectional temporality. My 2022 release of the ‘stroke my ego’ series featured fragmented anecdotes, distorted vocals, moments of laughter, and profound reflections on identity sonically stitched together. Blurring the lines between introspection and conversation, I forged a way to emulate the chaotic messiness my mind can hold, becoming the genesis of an ongoing practice of listening to past versions of myself to give light to future dreams.

Remixing is an evolving tool to reimagine and abstract culture, memory, community, and Blackqueer subjectivity. Therefore, in STROKE_MY_EGO_RE.MIXED, I reworked the entire series to document my evolution with audio diaries, conversations, and candid moments of Blackqueerness. It felt right to treat the audiovisual form of STROKE_MY_EGO_RE.MIXED as a present yet nostalgic remembrance of my ever-growing process of becoming. STROKE_MY_EGO_RE.MIXED_06_08_2023_19.13.m4a occurs in the corner of a bedroom with Blackqueer folks having a casual series of inaudible conversations.

06_08_2023_19.13.m4a, a stretched-out poem I wrote lamenting an almost lover, serves as the soundtrack. The low resolution and coloring of the visuals craft a memory reminiscent of the D-I-Y styles in early-age Nollywood handycam films. The moments of tender closeness expressed in the visual juxtapose the deep sonic feeling of not-so-distant loneliness, intense yet exhausted yearning, and melancholy.

Methane Sea (1978), an experimental record by the Detroit Techno pioneer Richard Davis, inspired the sound design, while the slurred slowness of the vocals is reminiscent of chopped-and-screwed southern hip hop. These sonic influences ground the poem in its fluidity and malleability as I submerge into the withering depths of love for someone constrained by the limits of their imagination.

Chaos and beauty share the same subjects in this paradoxical world. Our jumbled words, complex minds, full hearts, and embodied wisdom illuminate a sonic cacophony arising. STROKE_MY_EGO_RE.MIXED will forever be a reminder that the journey toward self-discovery is a collective one felt through love and care.

STROKE_MY_EGO_RE.MIXED_06_08_2023_19.13.m4a

Directed, Edited, Sound Designed, and Written by Osadolor
Camera Operator: Camila Bueno
Talents: Dame Kebe, Shawn Bennett, Akiva Brooks, and Justice Rossman
Production Assistant: Myiah Floyd
Lighting Assistant: Zella Vanié
Styling Contributor: Cameron Jarrett Williams
Hairstylist: LaidByAudie