In 2016, MAG acquired Sondra Perry’s Double Quadruple Etcetera Etcetera I& II, a two-channel video that addresses the issue of historically erased Black bodies. It shows two performers (Danny Giles and Joiri Minaya) pulsing through a chaotic dance, only to be outdone by the frenetic attempts of a content-aware computer function to fill their bodies with the white walls behind them. Their hair—a historically politicized marker of racial identity—remains untouched by the software, leaving a black swirl of movement that defies the system’s attempts at erasure.
Sondra Perry (born 1986) is an interdisciplinary artist whose works in video, computer-based media, and performance explore what Perry calls the “slippages of identity” that define subjective experience in the digital world. Perry investigates themes of power and agency, especially as they are determined by race and gender identities.
This video is silent.