Black Beyond Warpmode Series & Discussion

WHAT: Discussion with Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Jazsalyn, alongside “Warpmode” gameplay and a live sound performance. WHEN: October 18, 6 - 9 PM WHERE: 161 Water St, Floor 3 - Entrance on Water & John St.

“Warpmode” is a communal experience and expansive game of thought experiments where players draw cards and respond to existential prompts, to reconfigure social frameworks and Black metatheories: Afrofuturism, Afronowsim, Afrovoidism and Afropocalypse.

“Warpmode” reframes the format of a deck of cards as a comprehensive thought experiment.

RSVP will be available closer to the event.

Black Beyond “Warpmode” is a conceptual card game that shifts perceptions of reality to stimulate abstract conversations about Black metatheories. “Warpmode” is an expansive game of thought experiments where players draw cards and respond to existential prompts to reconfigure social and theoretical frameworks: Afrofuturism, Afronowsim, Afrovoidism and Afropocalypse.

On October 18, 2024, artists Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Jazsalyn will discuss Black metatheories in a conversation moderated by Yvonne Mpwo. Following the artist talk, attendees will engage in an interactive round of gameplay with the “Warpmode” card deck, during a live sound performance informed by Black metatheories.

“Warpmode,” created by Black Beyond Artistic Director Jazsalyn, launches on Metalabel on October 22, 2024.

Full Credits: 

Black Beyond “Warpmode” is a conceptual thought experiment created by Jazsalyn. The “Warpmode” Program Series is organized by Black Beyond Artistic Director Jazsalyn with Independent Curator Yvonne Mpwo. “Warpmode” is supported by Metalabel with program support from Onassis ONX and Pioneer Works.

About Jazsalyn:

Jazsalyn is an ONX member and the creator of Black Beyond “Warpmode.” As an artist and technologist, she works where fiction and reality collide. Through alternative media and re-indigenization her work considers new data models and memory restoration to preserve Ancestral Intelligence. Jazsalyn is the Artistic Director of the experimental curatorial project Black Beyond and teaches at The New School where she has written studio coursework on African and Diaspora rituals as speculative technology. Afropocalypse is a new conceptual framework by Jazsalyn featured in “Warpmode” and a forthcoming exhibition. Afropocalypse seeks to extend and reframe Afropessimism through the context of loss, regeneration, and the multidimensional cycles of apocalypse.

About Yvonne Mpwo:

Yvonne Mpwo is a Congolese - American Independent Curator based in New York City. She began her socially engaged curatorial practice in Texas and moved to New York to collaborate with organizations dedicated to increasing artistic viewership, discourse, and community participation. Yvonne’s current curatorial practice focuses on producing shows in collaboration with creative technologists. In addition to starting the nonprofit artist residency, bana’pwo, Yvonne is the Artistic Organizer and a Curator of the Congo Biennale in Kinshasa. Yvonne is pursuing a Masters of Science in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices (CCCP) at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP).

About Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley:

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (b. 1995, london) is a Berlin/London-based artist. They received an BA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2019. Brathwaite-Shirley works predominantly in animation, sound, performance, and video game development. Their practice focuses on intertwining lived experience with fiction to imaginatively retell the stories of Black Trans people. Danielle’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions and performances at institutions such as Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2024), LAS, Burghein berlin (2024), ,Studio Voltaire (2024), SCAD, Savanna (2023) Artnight Dundee (2023) Villa Arson, Nice (2023) Fact, liverpool (2022) David Kordansky, LA (2022) Project Arts Centre, Ireland (2022); Skänes konstförening, Malmö, Sweden (2022); Arebyte Gallery, London (2021); QUAD, Derby, England (2021); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (2021); Focal Point Gallery, London (2020); Science Gallery, London (2020); and MU Hybrid Art House, London (2020). Their work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin (2022); Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich (2019); Les Urbaines, Lausanne (2019); and Barbican, London (2018).

Black Beyond

Black Beyond is an experimental project, where antidisciplinary artists imagine alternate realities for blackness.

Metalabel

Metalabel is a project establishing a new model for creative people to release work, support one another, and be supported. www.metalabel.com

Pioneer Works

“Warpmode” will be featured at Pioneer Works during Press Play from December 7th-8th, 2024. Pioneer Works is an artist and scientist-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit cultural center in Red Hook, Brooklyn, that fosters innovative thinking through the visual and performing arts, technology, music, and science.

For more information about the Group Hug artists, curators, and collaborators please see the Onassis ONX website: Group Hug Homepage

For general inquiries: contact@onx.studio For media inquiries: onassis.onx@culturalcounsel.com