Typhoon Coming On

Houston, Texas–based multimedia artist Sondra Perry (born 1986) creates narratives that explore the imagining or imaging of blackness throughout history. Often drawing on her own life as a point of departure, she makes works that revolve around black American experiences and the ways in which technology and identities are entangled. Her use of digital tools and platforms such as Chroma key blue screens, 3D avatars, open source software and footage found online, reflects critically on representation itself. Perry's investigations demonstrate that digital technology functions as an attribute of power. As the artist says, "I'm interested in how blackness is a technology, changing and adapting, through the constant surveillance and oppression of black folks across the diaspora since the 1600s. Unmediated seeing isn't a thing."

Edited by Amira Gad. Text by Manuel Arturo Abreu, Elizabeth Alexander, Hannah Black, Simone Browne, Aria Dean, Robert Jones, Jr., Nora N. Khan, Natasha Marie Llorens, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Yana Peel, Sable Elyse Smith, Hito Steyerl, Lumi Tan, Soyoung Yoon.