Welcome to proj-ectPRO:JECT’s website. Let us know if you like what you see, or if you think there’s anything we are missing. We are especially happy/encouraged to be alerted to other cultural worker’s websites and will be compiling a list of our favorites soon. We are particularly and specifically interested in other collectives, groups, and/or group-minded individuals, etc. Email us at info [at] reelchange [dot] org with your suggestions.
Check out the ABOUT page for more about what’s going on behind pP.
But more importantly, check out what pP has been up to:
proj-ectPRO:JECT recent community partnerships:
Tech Soup is working on their new website and pP is documenting their user testing interviews.
About Face has had some amazing actions; pP edited the video footage shot by the young women involved.
SFWAR, in general is a great organization, check them out.
BAY Peace needed a campaign video for their Youth Manifesto, we were able to shoot and edit while learning more about how the military is invading our schools and the lives of youth.
EJCC is fighting for Climate Justice and we are proud to support their digital communications needs as often as possible.
Please also support the following new Filmmakers and the facilitated stories from pP’s recent workshops:
Length: 8 minutes. A visual poem that re-imagines the journey from childhood sexual abuse, where the lover, trauma and the possibility of healing all exist within the space of a moment.
“…Lara’s perspective as a mother and how that has allowed her to grow leaps and bounds as a person. Facing the world and all of it’s ups and downs as she affirms herself and a whole other human being (her daughter, Lola). True existence, true courage.” -Oluwakemi Amin (www.emancipateoluwakemi.com)Welcome
As image-makers we have a responsibility and we are accountable for the images we produce, at least that’s the world I want to live and produce in . Sophie Muller fails hard at responsible image making, integrity and art with Sade’s Solider of Love video.
***Sophie Muller***
***Sade Adu***
Let me be real, mostly I’m upset because this is SADE!!! Nothing more. Nothing less. The best. Sade. This is the sole reason for this plaintiff wail, “Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?”
The song is beautiful, like ALL of her others. Sade’s voice, her artistry. The long-waited return of the songstress my mother introduced me to– it was 1984 and my single, Black mom made her debut in the kitchen, me waiting patiently at the table for something burnt, dry or cold while she belted out “your kisses ring/ round and round and round my head…” I’ll never forget the confusion in seeing my mom swoon at the stove like that. She was feelin’ it. Moved by the lyrics to skate across the kitchen floor in front of me- I didn’t know my mom had “those” feelings until those moments came to pass. Soldier of love takes us all back, if not there, then at the very least somewhere. That’s what we live for in Sade songs. That’s what I felt again the day the song hit the internet and rumors began to fly that a new album was coming. The confirmation of Feb 8, 2010 made 2009 not look that bad afterall, there was indeed something worthwhile coming. (A flair for the dramatic is appropriate when describing anything to do with the force that is Ms. Adu.)
I digress. Back to what offended me artistically and intellectually. Sophie Muller’s video…
Simply put, the video is a tragic attempt at manifesting powerful images to match the song’s simplicity or it’s simultaneous complexity. On a deeper level it is irresponsible and offensive.
Let’s start with the cheesiness and get the easy part out of the way: A stage, a screen, a budget and some bad dance moves does not a music video make. Add to it a white horse, lassos, silver Lamé! and smoke canisters and we are moving from cheesy to problematic faster than the Tiger Wood’s scandal become unbearable. Please tell me that all they had access to was a tired Hollywood back lot or sound stage and an even more tired, in fact retired, trunk of props and costumes and I’ll tell you that you are a liar. I’ll tell you that anyone in any of my video classes, from the 8 year olds to the 70 year olds, from the poets to the working class mothers and the working class mother poets, any or all of them with no budget, and almost anyone in the world would have made a better video for this song than what we have here:
Okay, so, should I choose to brush the silly images of horses and crashing waves under the rug, then what do I do with the truly problematic images that follow?
Do we (me, you and Sophie Muller) really need to play “Cowboys and Indians” in the video? Sure Sade proclaims “It’s the wild wild West” and we thank the heavens that she also decrees, “I’m doin’ my best.” The lassos and white horse were not anyone’s best (idea). Avatar was enough of the new fangled cowboys and Indians for me this year. Please someone at least try to give us something other than fictionalized fantasies of our oppressor or romanticized (brutal) reality of cowboys, soldiers, corporations and destruction. I do not want Sade to be cast in that role, it doesn’t change anything about it. Neither does the image of her as an imperialist forces leader.
I don’t want to imagine Smooth Operator Sade, as the leader of any Blackwater/Xe force, which her dancers simplistically call up with their stomping and (finger) gun pointing. Maybe I am giving her too much credit but Sade could move the world with a single whisper. …if she grabbed the mic and whispered “please world, recycle” you wouldn’t catch another bottle floating down a river nor a cellphone or battery in a landfill. Never. Ever again. Her force is not a violent one, but using the imagery of the violent forces of the world is a dangerous undertaking.
These seemingly benign and even mistaken for “appropriate,” if not obvious, images are based on the song’s title “_Soldier_ of Love.” In my mind soldiers of love are Mumia, George Jackson, Lil Bobby Hutton, Huey P. Newton, Assata Shakur, Sara Gomez, Audre Lorde, Poolan Devi, and so on and so forth.
A soldier of love is not a dancing gun pointing fool; I honestly don’t believe that is what Sade had in mind when she wrote and recorded this song. (Or at least I hope not.)
That’s not the end of the horror of this video either.
What we have next is heartbreaking to me.
The Violent/Dangerous Black man follows her. She subdues him. Only to then encounter another man, but this time a white, or fair skinned man who… wait for it… unveils Sade and then becomes the love interest she falls, literally, for. God help me, I don’t know where to begin here. I can only ask why are we still having to watch these played out images? I am not going to be the brown warrior and unpack the nap sack of racism step by step here. Today I refuse. Maybe tomorrow. But please feel free to do your own research if you don’t get why this part is stomach-churning. Many, many brilliant people of all colors have written about this. It’s called racism, no, better yet let’s call it what it really is, it’s white supremacy. This is not about if Sade, or any other individual, has a white boyfriend or husband or lover. Remember this is a music video, not a autobiography and not in the context of race-relations debates.
This is another dangerous uncontextualized 4 minutes in pop culture that will creep past our eyes, replete with problematic imagery that never gets checked. And that is, partially, why I am angry about it.
“New “smart” phones have set the stage for the future of a mobile Internet. But companies like AT&T and Verizon are getting in the way by shackling open and innovative devices to closed networks. The FCC and Congress must step in to protect consumers and foster innovation. We demand:
The freedom to choose any phone on any network.
The freedom to choose among many carriers in a competitive, low-cost marketplace.
The freedom to access any Web content, applications or services we want through our phones.”
[CLICK image to go to freepress.net's site to sign the petition.]
While they can’t do anything more than Microsoft will let them, they really do have good things for full-fledged non-profits and a ton of great info for the rest of us- check out TechSoupGlobal.
I’ll post one of the videos I’ve been working on with them soon. Just wanted to give a virtual shout out for now.
…it has been said that several barely-known to well-known films have been completed on borrowed time. Either the camera was purchased and returned quickly or the filmmaker maxed out credit cards and personal loans to “fund” the passion project du jour. These days everything from a funny moment to a genuine message can be broadcast from your palm or pocket as camera(phones) move closer and closer to becoming mobile broadcast pods replete with semi-pro lenses and editing software on board.
With debates still raging about digital divides and their bridges and band-aides, messages of hope (pro-social) rise above those of hate (anti-social) at least in terms of what gets reposted and rebroadcast widely while questions of power and possibility remain deeply burried in far left movements that still see no light, nor Youtube posting, nor Tweet. We think it is time to revisit some of the tenants of Third Cinema/Tercer Cine.
How do we, in this moment, actively oppose a system and in fact use its tools to support others in turning their backs on colonizing forces? What do we ask of each other after changing our middle names to Hussein and/or our locations to Tehran because neither of those “actions” made nor made way for real change. Those actions did show us the power of social media.
By any means.
