Arthur Jafa tell us about APEX

Images rain down like a hail of bullets, 841 in 492 seconds, almost all motionless, projected to a backdrop of hypnotic techno pulses and loop-ing, syncopated electrocardiogram beeps. It’s a world in black and white; a world of blacks and whites with sporadic violent bursts of colour: a blue, a yellow, a recurrent blood-red.

Actors, singers and celebrities appear: Mickey Mouse, King Kong and Gollum; the robot-woman from Metropolis, the computer from 2001, a Space Odyssey; monsters and mutants, sacred objects and totemic masks, legions of angels and “primitive” tribes, and all sorts of contraptions and machines. Deep-sea creatures are juxtaposed with supersized microorganisms, a shark re-veals a toothy smile, a fluther of jellyfish levitates above the abyssal plains.

It’s an onslaught of images that either blur into a welcome haze or, with their cru-el sharpness, lead a frenzied assault on the sens-es. The images are naïve, abstract, impressionistic, topographic, surreal and architectural; they rub against one another, clashing and creating sparks of meaning. 

This film was presented in the Grande Halle from 2 July to 4 November 2018.