consent not to be a single being-a VR experiment

"Consent not to be a single being" is an artistic research experiment by Nduka Mntambo, an image maker, and Tumi Mogorosi, a musician. Inspired by Caribbean scholar Edouard Glissant's concept of "the consent to not be a single being," the project aims to explore the polyphonic using a synaesthesiastic modality. The collaboration seeks to push beyond the usual boundaries of disciplines, challenging the failure to contain by exploring moments where sound goes beyond its usual confines and escapes through unexpected channels. The project is interested in exploring the hymntic scales of the band and the visual splendour of brass conflated with the colonial sartorial remnants of the uniforms. It questions what "publics" are imagined and operationalized in this site and how an artistic research project in both form and content accounts for the polyphonic experientiality of the site. To explore and decode a set of aural, visual, sensorial, and sonic (a)algorithmic encounters, the project draws on the agglutinative mode. The resulting sonic architectonics afford a dislocation from the generic and disciplinary confines to a more nuanced encounter with artistic praxis. The wide spectrum of aural elements, from reverberations from the band's corrugated iron rehearsal room to the score to voices, and more, offers a way out of discipline, a way of questioning. This questioning that makes what was taken for granted questionable is the mode of research that "Consent not to be a single being" is interested in exploring through synaesthesia. The project has the potential to inspire new ways of thinking about artistic practice and creative collaboration.

direction nduka mntambo

music composed by tumi mogorosi

performed by tumi mogorosi (drums) mthunzi mvubu (alto sax) reza khota (guitar) ariel zamonsky (double bass) cinematography by hlengiwe mkwayi jéad stehr edit by jéad stehr .

text from DeAesthetic: Writing with and from the Black Sonic by Tumi Mogorosi