
Lessons I— CLXXX
Over a four-year period, Martine Syms gathered 180 video clips—each 30 seconds long—from sources such as YouTube, talk shows, Vine, and her own personal video diaries. They focus largely on media images and everyday gestures of Blackness that circulate across the electronic devices that shape contemporary life, with each clip functioning as a canto or stanza in Lessons I-CLXXX. The clips echo the format of short advertisements, and suggest that the private moments of one individual are inscribed within a larger collective and commercial culture. They are woven together and sequenced randomly to create an open-ended poetic collage inspired by and participating in the Black radical tradition. Syms’s earliest lessons draw on the poet Kevin Young’s encyclopedic work of literary and cultural criticism, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (2012), in which the traditions, or “lessons,” of Black life are understood as the center of American culture.
- Status
- Released
- Budget
- —
- Box office
- —
- Language
- EN
Behind the camera
Director
Videos
No extra videos are listed for this title yet.
Release dates
PortugalPT
- PremierePorto14 Jun 2018
Frequently asked questions
Lessons I— CLXXX was released on 14 June 2018.
Member reviews
Sign in to rate and review. Browsing stays free and open.
Sign inMember comments
0Sign in to post a comment. Browsing stays free and open.
Sign in











