Frequencies of Opacity offers portals of presence through virtual mechanisms with immigrant collaborators, shifting the system of codes by subverting the technological apparatus to translate the human condition and resist power, surveillance and marginalization.

Emphasizing the complexities of the migrant condition, Frequencies of Opacity speaks to the ‘in between’ state where we negotiate our place in the world, our associations, ideologies and histories of the political in the pursuit of the sovereignty of self.

PORTALS OF PRESENCE

Strata: Zero, Zero-One

The Strata Series LED formations translate vocal data visualizations of immigrant collaborators to provide portals of presence as mechanisms of anonymous occupation of public space.

These unique, individual representations signify communication as intentional existential acts of freedom.

PUBLICS

PUBLICS presents a private, live-streaming camera network available to one anonymous undocumented immigrant collaborator.

This camera array sets a series of contextual, technological and spatial proximities from multiple viewing positions. Remote views ‘stand’ in the groupings singularly, yet with an unknown amount of movement between live perspectives.

Whispers: Mantras

Bearing Witness: What if you could hold a whisper in the palm of your hand?

Whispers is a series of 3D printed sculptures interpreting voiceover recordings from Roney’s cinematic works, “On the Edge of Self” and “Refugee Conversations”, expressing the physical power of a whisper.

All images and video courtesy Upfor Gallery and Danielle Roney; photo credit: Mario Gallucci

From “Occupying Institutional Spaces through Immateriality” written by the artist for knowledges, 2019, Spencer Museum of Art, as part of the Integrated Arts Research Initiative.

“To understand and embrace opacity is to claim the sovereignty of self. To live in difference. To evolve in relation to the experiences of exchange.

We must support an irreducible legitimacy, as a means of liberation, sustaining a multiplicity of potentials through interfaces of exchange and thus intersubjectivity. By leveraging immateriality as a strategy of human freedom, we create portals perforating these spaces, where autonomous algorithms empower virtual culture to create radical vehicles of ethnography.”