Assembly
Rooted in his interdisciplinary practice spanning over a decade, Assembly, Rashaad Newsome’s 2022 commission for the Park Avenue Armory Wade Thompson Drill Hall incorporates artificial intelligence, 3D animation, holography, sound, collage, vinyl and sculpture to create a “Black gestalten language.” In the vast Drill Hall, visitors first encounter a room with video-mapped walls that pulsate with imagery of diasporic fractals surrounding a 30-foot-tall hologram sculpture. In an adjacent space, a 350-seat theater serves as both an art object and classroom surrounded by Newsome’s intricate collages hosed in his unique artist frames and sculptures. At the center is Being the Digital Griot, Newsome’s non-binary AI progeny whose voice acts as the exhibition’s surround soundscape. When not reading their original poetry, Being invites visitors to take workshops that combine pedagogy, dance, storytelling, and meditation. In the evening, the theater offers a new performance work that employs various live art modalities such as AI, hip hop, film, spoken word, dance, and musical.
The multimedia work features poets, musicians, vocalists, and dancers from around the globe, presenting unique movements that synthesize vogue with the traditional dances of their territories. Assembly makes the power embedded in Black creative expression visible and tells the story of how ballroom culture – created by disenfranchised black and Latinx queer youth – found its way to the global stage. The performance mirrors the ever-evolving nature of diasporic dance and draws parallels between the dance and the Black American experience.