KUDISHNYAO!

3 years ago, the Goethe-Institut in Nairobi commissioned us to create a video-art exhibition. We had a month to come up with that, and the result was TRNSMSSN – an offbeat sensory overload installation that showcased all our videos up to that point, and some new material we created for the event specifically (such as music videos for “If I Could“).

TRNSMSSN went down well with young people who usually avoided staid art galleries, we had groups coming in over their lunch break to spend time just absorbing the work.

This year, we’ve been asked once again to come up with another video-art show. We wondered how we could make it different this time. First, we titled the show “Kudishnyao!” which – if you grew up in Nairobi (Kenya?) – you might recognize as an onomatopaeic sound used by kids – when playing games like cops and robbers, or any game requiring weaponry – to denote a gunshot (the less palatable “Dinyao!” denoted a gun with a silencer).

TRNSSMSN was set up to run 9 video loops at the same time, the largest projection was the only one with an audio stream. This meant that most visitors gravitated towards the large screen. Then we noticed some visitors would ignore the large screen and watch the smaller ones “with the wrong audio”, as it were.

Someone remarked to us, “It’s like remixing the video, by watching it and listening to the audio from another one.”

That remark stuck with us, and for this show we’ve decided to have six simultaneous video streams that are all connnected. The stories play out on all six screens at the same time, and you can watch whichever you want – hopefully, you’ll get different perspectives depending on which side you watch.

This is an experiment, and our fingers are tightly crossed! The exhibition opens on the 2nd of April at 8PM at the Goethe-Institut Nairobi, and will run from the 4th – 29th April from 1pm – 6pm daily.
RSVP on Facebook here and read more about it on the Goethe-Institut website.

We hope you’ll join us!

Kudishnyao!