MISCELLANEOUS
installations | audio | the undefinable
CREATIVE WEBSITE BRIEF: MELANIN4S
(Ongoing)
‘MELANIN4S’ is a fictional website advertising the ‘melanin’ of different races as a product for consumers to buy. It is set in a futuristic reality where race swapping is now a real possibility controlled by the eponymous MELANIN4S organization, which has capitalized on this novel concept. Originally conceived as a modern take of Keith Obadike’s Blackness for Sale (2001), MELANIN4S doubles down on the original work’s premise, which was a small self-contained eBay post from one individual looking to profit off of their own race. However, this simple concept is ballooned into a gargantuan capitalist cooperation that is far removed from one man’s struggle. As often is the case in the modern day, Black people (and people of colour in general) often have the simplest things, our struggles themselves, turned into a commodity to exploit. In addition to the original piece, I was also very much inspired by the short film White (2011, directed by A. Sayeeda Clarke) which explores a very similar concept of a dystopian world where people can sell their melanin.
This piece is essentially a response to the passive or subtle racism we see often in today’s society. Back in the day, if people didn’t like you because of your skin colour, they’d let you know, explicitly, but today people who still hold these archaic sentiments will shield their views under a layer of false pretence and niceties. Just because people aren’t as bold as they were before, doesn’t mean that they still don’t hold their biases. That’s why this piece involves a lot of euphemisms and isn’t as direct as Obadike’s original. It also plays a lot into false activism, in the sense that the entirety of the website is trying to portray itself as a progressive move forward, when it is essentially doing the bare minimum and actively harming the cause it seems so passionate about.
Everything, from the name (Melanin 4 Us - as an accessory for the upper class to use) down to the actual design of the website (being mostly white and using any hint of colour only as an accent to complement the whiteness), has been carefully planned to represent this particular bias. The names of the different ‘Body’ types all being food names and henceforth something to be consumed and used rather than appreciated as the website would like you to think; the tagline implying diversity to be an interesting character trait rather than an essential part of one’s identity; the hidden details, contract pages and more are all there to show an implicit bias. The website’s hidden features also allow for some commentary on capitalist organizations often trying to prey on consumer insecurities or hide prices/dangers of a product. The website is built to show not only (but primarily) racial biases, but some social biases against body types (e.g. Body products only fitting ‘some’ bodies, a.k.a thin ones), social class and living situations.
All of this ties into race, especially in the website’s more straightforward sections (such as the google form which assigns race based on qualities that have much more to do with one’s social status than race). My goal here is to expand this website into a more cohesive and multifaceted project and to have more control over the design aspects than what I currently have available to me with free website editors. I would also create actual shopping pages, a ‘buying’ system, more in depth info (which I of course would provide), a page to explain what the website is and its inspirations, and eventually going into the other Body types rather than just Chocolate (after finding appropriate sources and some thorough research). Some examples of other artistic websites that I could potentially see this website becoming like can be found here (a much more experimental version) and here (something more straightforward).
Interactive Films
Alina is simply a character in a game, destined to do only what is strictly outlined for her by the player character. But what if there is more to her than that. What if she can escape the narrator dictacting her life and make her own decisions? In this interactive film, you can help Alina go down the path of obedience, or escape into her own world.
Travel through a world dictated by a strict gender binary in this quirky interactive film with a twist! Choose between a male and female avatar and traverse a regular day as a university student. Talk to other students, make dialogue choices and soak in the pixel art - but also the lesson. Not everything is as binary as you think it is.
Audio Work
a glimpse of me experimental coffee shop pond