Black Noise, 2025
Single channel video, sound
Running time: 00:08:20
Black Noise, which is composed of cut together found videos, including an interview with DC drill rapper Skino in his neighborhood while surrounded by national guard patrol and federal agents, alongside videos of him flexing his watch in front of the soldiers. The videos are centered around a screen recording of me watching music videos by several DC area drill artists, drowned out by the sound of three helicopters hovering over my neighborhood, interspliced with my own original noise music production. This recording of helicopters long predates the occupation, my area is already just kind of like that. I live in Prince George’s County Maryland, and grew up in the parts of the county that borders DC’s 5th and 7th wards, an area of the county that lies in the intersection of two major airports and a military base, as well as multiple large highway junctions and hospital centers, so air traffic is constant, and noise is common. I learned from the film The Diary of a Sky by Lawrence Abu Hamdan of the long term health effects of prolonged exposure to jet engine noise. Jet engine noise spikes your cortisol levels, and that over time hardens the blood vessels, causing heart disease. My area has the highest rates of heart disease in the metro area, likely caused in tandem with a lack of access to higher quality nutrition, circumstances like those exemplified by the broken PlayStation controller. The sound from the video has been burned onto corresponding CDs and placed within the space. Reminiscent of local rappers handing out their mixtapes, it's about harnessing the bad to make some good, turning noise into music, circumstance into art.
Black Noise ends with a clip I took at a show by late DC area artists Goonew and Lil Gray, where even though someone set off the fire alarm, they kept on performing, because despite the blaring noise of helicopters or otherwise that drown out the streets of DC, the people still persist. And like Skino’s watch, they still shine.