Interactive audio-video installation

Nothing 02 approaches the ongoing genocide of millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the continuing theft of independence and autonomy, generation after generation. This work asks many questions. How can we humanly compute atrocities of this scale? (How) Do we feel the impossible immensity? How to comprehend a collective tragedy of this scale when the individual stories it encompasses already overchallenge our capabilities – exposing us to unbearable heartbreaks and severe maddening? How can we feel something so big and so present that it feels distant and nothing? How to go against detachment? How can we resist the pressure to aestheticize and romanticize Black, African, Bantu, Congolese suffering? How can we gather existing and missing pieces while facing the impossible task of integrating them? Nothing 02 is a desperate but controlled attempt to count and name all of the victims murdered (data) in the genocide with no discernable order (noise). On the screen, a person appears covered by noise, or soil, or minerals. She starts to enumerate numbers when a witness is present. The intention is to humanize by spelling numbers as names and to acknowledge each person by taking the time to compute, pronounce, and breathe each number-name. This counting would take more than 17 years if it was done continuously, making this piece super-durational. This real-time counting is an act of being with and through that needs a witness to occur.