Sharp Rotation : IYKYK

Sharp Rotation is an essay film, created by artist Devin Kenny as an exploration of ciphers and ciphering as they exist in hip-hop culture, religion, mathematics, information security, and other fields. Through a variety of found footage sources, new original music made with Nelson Bandela, and personal reflections, Sharp Rotation asks us to trace the history of a »cipher« as a word and concept while interrogating how ciphers and encryption have been used in various historical contexts, from antiquity to post-Fordian United States and worldwide. In a society in which one’s traditional cultural practices are banned, cloaking or encoding activities is not only an aesthetic exercise in style, but can be a matter of survival.

Kenny considers showcasing a new approach to the video essay that takes advantage of our contemporary state of hyper-connection with seemingly infinite other media. What if this »elephant in the room« of being able to click away wasn’t a trait you denied as a filmmaker, but instead embraced? What if while seeing a clip analyzed on-screen, you were given a source and space? What if a video essay could be approached like a poetry chapbook, or a cooking show on a kitchen TV?

The format for the web project will include embedded video and ways of sharing hyperlinks to the source footage, akin to the footnotes of a book. Inspired by the aesthetic and technical concerns of Ted Nelson’s Xanadu space, the format will be addressed with contemporary programming languages and communities founded on an open-source ethos and methodology.