“Sankofa City” Dissertation

Sankofa City is my dissertation project, based on 4+ years of working with Ben Caldwell and the Leimert Phone Company.

We will explore the nexus of emerging technology, art, and community-based urban design, to provide visions for the future of local innovation and cultural development in Los Angeles.

“Sankofa City” is a collaboration between USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab, Ben Caldwell’s Kaos Network, and Urban Systems nonprofit autonomous vehicles company. The project proves that large research universities, nonprofits, and local communities can work together and empower local citizens to imagine alternative urban technologies that work for the public good.

The advent of new urban-based technologies means that the future form of Los Angeles will be unlike anything one can now imagine. For example, how might self-driving vehicles and augmented reality be used to change our relationship to the city – to even change the city itself? We will conduct a series of collaborative workshops with artists, students, technical experts, and local Leimert Park residents, to create vivid scenarios of the possibilities to share with the public and spark debate.

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“Sankofa Says” Big Urban Game at Indiecade

“Sankofa Says” is a place-based game that brings people together on the streets of Culver City as part of Indiecade 2014. To succeed, players join flash rallies at local landmarks, make phone calls to answer riddles about local history, and tell truth from neighborhood fiction.

Every adventure requires hitting the streets, meeting new people. Even locals will encounter a few surprises. With a little luck, you will discover strange cinema history, play with public art, and even help tell the story of Culver City yourself.
More on the game: http://www.sankofa.cc
More on our group: http://www.leimertphonecompany.net/

Ride South LA video at the Guggenheim

The video I made for the Ride South LA group was featured in the Guggenheim Museum’s new exhibit on the Participatory City. Our contribution is a response to the term “Collaborative Urban Mapping,” based on our work in South LA with the Healthy Food Map. The video was funded as part of the Guggenheim’s exhibit, which addresses “100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab,” and is showing from October 11, 2013 through January 5, 2014. The exhibit explores the major themes and ideas that emerged from the Lab during its travels to New York, Berlin, and Mumbai. See all videos in the collection in a YouTube playlist (ours is #25).

The Leimert Phone Company

The Leimert Phone Company is a community design project in South Los Angeles. By repurposing payphones, the project seeks to reclaim public space and create cultural portals to local arts, music, and business. South LA is set to change over the next 10 years as planners focus on development around a new subway line through the area. In the face of possible gentrification, how can a community art project deepen neighborhood identity and broaden access to local business? Our collaborative team chose payphones as sites for public intervention and transmedia storytelling tied to justice.

The Leimert Phone team is composed of students from USC and local artists from Leimert Park. Through a 5-week workshop participants formed 3 project groups to develop unique designs. The workshop used rapid-prototyping and playtesting to facilitate lo-fi transmedia designs to share stories and access local music, history, artwork, and business. Each group presented their work on April 6, 2013 to local residents, students, and a panel of expert community organizers. The groups’ presentations included concept videos, detailed design handouts, visual mockups, and a hardware demo. Examples included a phone to play, download, and purchase tickets to local hip-hop acts. Other one sent you on a scavenger hunt to local businesses to collect stories and receive discounts. (Check out group videos http://leimertphonecompany.net/week-4-concept-videos/)

Lebenverse: Living Video Memory

Lebenverse: Living Video Memory (2009, HDV 73mins)

The documentary analyzed the Gulf Wars, the Rodney King beating, and the Iranian “twitter revolution,” focusing on the emerging social formations and shifting power relations accompanying the proliferation of personal technologies. It was filmed across the US as I interviewed Gulf War veterans, LA Riot witnesses, and cultural studies scholars such as Marita Sturken, Hamid Naficy, and Alison Landsberg. The documentary was funded by the competitive UC Berkeley Human Rights Grant and was a collaborative research project with the Witness organization in New York.

Mundos especulares (Mirror Worlds)

Mundos especulares (Mirror Worlds) (2008, HDV 37mins)

Documentary focused on the development of Argentina’s post-traumatic history after the dictatorship of 1976-83, particularly on the role of film production in the construction of national memory and recovery.  The documentary maps the general trajectory of increasingly nuanced and complex filmic representations, while contextualizing each film’s production within the shifting and often contradictory political discourses surrounding that traumatic period. Funded by Ohio State Honors Research Grant and International Affairs Grant.

Extended Preview

Occupy Oakland

Occupy Oakland (2011, HD)

The ongoing video series is part of a commitment to political activism and community participation.  The documentation helps present a movement structured around alternative forms of democratic participation.  The concept of the General Assembly within the Occupy movement is an inclusive consensus-building model of participation that has become a statement against the failed and corrupt representative republic of the US government.  Because of its inclusivity as well as its critique against government corruption and unrestricted global capitalism, the Occupy groups have come under increasing media attacks and governmental crackdowns.

First Day GA and 10/22 March
Forced Eviction/Tear Gas 10/25 
General Strike/Port Shutdown

Scholar of the Year

Scholar of the Year (2010/2011, HD)

Scholar/Youth of the Year is an annual scholarship competition amongst youth from East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Redwood City. As an extremely dedicated group of scholars, they competed for community recognition, financial support for high school, and a sense of pride in having control over their future.  The competition is hosted by the Center for a New Generation, as part of a larger effort to create a supportive academic and social structure for students in struggling school districts and communities in the San Francisco Peninsula.

2010 Scholar of the Year Finals                           
2010 Scholar of the Year James Flood (East Palo Alto)