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LAB 2022-2023

COLLATERAL ECHOES VR

Baff Akoto, Lidz-Ama Appiah, Luke W Moody / United Kingdom, Ireland / 2023 

Collateral Echoes is a new VR artwork concerned with the disproportionate instances of Black and Immigrant Britons who have died at the hands of the police since records began in 1969.
Through sensorial renderings of archival images, artefacts and oral testimonies from those bereaved, this work questions how personal memories might be experienced as collective commemoration.

This project is a Virtual Reality artwork which blurs the boundaries between expanded cinema and immersive technology. The concept and form of this artwork combine to create living breathing portraits of people who have been killed – the result of long term dialogue, and creative exchange with relatives who have survived them. The depiction of these absent subjects is the result of conversations with those who survived the violent, tragic and state-initiated deaths of their mothers, sons and siblings.

A selection of archival images, artefacts and oral testimonies provided by the survivors of 12 people killed after police contact will take an audience beyond the statistics, inquests and miscarriages of justice to build a human, poignant and esoteric commemoration of the lives and memories behind the names of those who have been killed in this way. What does it mean when recurring themes around mental health, the immigrant experience and racial justice are constantly present throughout the recollections in this work. The audience will experience this artwork as a Virtual Reality experience with digitally rendered environments, and 2D archival video with immersive sound design. This will tour as an installation, a location-based experience, and be distributed as a standalone VR artwork.

Artistically our aim with this work is to help audiences move beyond questionable police testimony, discredited coroners’ reports, reductive news packages and dismaying inquest verdicts and instead focus their intimate attention on the humanity, potential and personalities of those killed after police contact in the UK. A VR memorial for the digital era commemorating those no longer with us.

The deployment of lethal force by agents of the state both internationally (Putin in Ukraine) and internally (police killings in Tottenham or police shootings in Stockwell) has never been under more scrutiny. The de facto postcolonial understanding that state “might is right” is undergoing an unprecedented kicking in the public global consciousness in a post George Floyd world. With a disproportionate number of those killed in the UK hailing from Black and immigrant communities, this artwork provokes questions around how power is wielded, by whom and questions if all British lives are equally valued by this state we all call home.

Baff Akoto

Artist

Biography:

Baff Akoto’s work embraces the fluidity of visual grammar, notions of plurality and (self) perception. Most recently Akoto explores the artistic potential of Virtual and Augmented Reality to interrogate how the digital revolution might avoid the same prejudices, exclusions and inequalities which arose from our industrial and colonial eras. Akoto is shortlisted for the 2022 Aesthetica Art Prize for his work LEAVE THE EDGES. He is part of the 2022 cohorts for both The London Open triennial at Whitechapel Gallery and the 13th Bamako Biennial of African Photography. In 2021 he was a resident of the Guest Projects Digital programme delivered by the Yinka Shonibare Foundation.

Lidz-Ama Appiah

Producer

Biography:

With narrative and production talents honed over twenty years at WarnerMedia and NBC Universal working in news and documentary production, L-A Appiah now develops and produces artist film, feature film and XR experiences through the digital studio Recurring Dreams. Key producing credits include the VR series Virtual (Black) Reality (Google/Youtube/Tribeca Film Institute), and the moving image art work LEAVE THE EDGES both from artist Baff Akoto. 2022 sees the theatrical release of feature film QUEEN OF GLORY (from debut director Nana Mensah) executive produced by L-A Appiah.

Luke W Moody

Producer

Biography:

Luke W Moody is a creative producer and curator most recently working with artists to develop new moving image work through his company LONO Studio. From 2017-2019 he was Director of Film Programming at the world-leading non-fiction film festival Sheffield Doc/Fest, curating the 200 title film programme (both short and long-form documentaries) and producing live events. Previously he was Head of Film at Doc Society, co-commissioning long-form documentary cinema across six international film funds from development to completion. He also co-founded and curated new cinema festival FRAMES of REPRESENTATION at ICA, London and online curation platform Something Real.