Fred Moten

What does it mean to be Black in America in the 21st century? The recently formed Black American film group TNEG™ has set out to elucidate this very question. Hearing from the likes of fine artist Kara Walker and musical artist Flying Lotus, the film is based on a deceptively simple approach -- asking a refined list of black 'specialists' as well as 'uncommon folks' questions about what they think, and more importantly as lead director Arthur Jafa states, 'What they KNOW' -- the film is an unprecedented 'stream of the black consciousness' and a strikingly original and rarefied look at black intellectual and emotional life. What's so unorthodox about this simple approach is that the interviews were recorded separately from the images in the film. What results is a breathtaking, kaleidoscopic look of American black life from the dawn of three original filmmakers.

This two-channel film, initiated as a long-distance communication experiment, was the result of an exchange with Fred Moten, the poet and theorist whose work explores representation and identity in black avant-garde culture. Moten and Tsang left each other voicemail messages every day over a two-week period, never actually making contact, but often riffing off of the other’s previous message. The recordings of these messages serve as voiceover for footage of the faces of Moten and Tsang looking directly at the camera with deadpan expressions.

Conceived as a performance for the camera, Girl Talk captures poet and theorist Fred Moten in a verdant garden donning an ornate velvet cape and crystal jewelry: what is generally coded as decidedly feminine attire. His body spins slowly, filling the frame with mesmerizing continuous motion. Ambient light at times diffuses his image to a rotating blur. He lip-syncs to a jazz rendition of the title song, Girl Talk, sung originally by Tony Bennett, a darling of 60s middle class white culture.

A young filmmaker named Domino travels from the UK to New York City to hunt down funding for her new film. Harkening back to classic counter-cultural Big Apple films of the 70s and 80s, Keep Looking has a loose, jazzy feel that gives this simple narrative a hip freshness.