The Otolith Group

An extensive and comprehensive polyphonic exploration of the work of The Otolith Group, coming at a pivotal point in their practice.

The work of this London-based artist's collective comprised of Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun covers politics of race and diversity and incorporates film making and post-lens-based essayistic aesthetics that explore the temporal anomalies, anthropic inversions, and synthetic alienation of the posthuman, the inhuman, the non-human, and the complexity of the environmental conditions of life we all face. 

Presenting all bodies of work contained in the Xenogenesis exhibition, this publication includes many materials and graphics from The Otolith Group's broader practice, including performance, lecture and research material. The outcome of over four years of collaboration, research and conversation, the publication is not a chronological exhibition catalogue or retrospective but a cross-section of their work which includes substantial contributions from the artists themselves, in the form of writing and direct engagement with its production.

The publication also brings together important thinkers, scholars, art historians and writers from disparate fields, who know and have worked with the group, as well as those who are writing from a contemporary perspective. They include Denise Ferreira da Silva, Annie Fletcher, Anselm Franke, Shanay Jhaveri, George E. Lewis, Mahan Moalemi, Fred Moten, Grant Watson, Vivian Ziherl and the late Mark Fisher each of whom reflect on a particular aspect of the Group's practice with supplementary materials such as archival images, documented conversations, early lecture performances as well as other accompanying texts and examinations of their research sites.

Endless Shout asks how, why and where performance and improvisation can take place inside a museum.

The book documents a six-month series of experimental performances organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, where five participants—Raúl de Nieves, Danielle Goldman, George Lewis, The Otolith Group and taisha paggett—collectively led a series of improvisation experiments. These include Miya Masaoka's A Line Becomes a Circle, which pays tribute to Shiki Masaoka, a subversive Japanese haiku writer; jumatatu m. poe and Jerome "Donte" Beacham's Let 'im Move You, addressing the history of J-Sette, a dance form popularized at historically black colleges; and A Recital for Terry Admins by composer George Lewis. The book includes an essay by curator Anthony Elms, conversations with Jennie C. Jones and Wadada Leo Smith on themes of rhythm, rehearsal and improvisation, plus new works created specifically for the book, such as a script by The Otolith Group on blackness and digital color correction.