Jibade-Khalil Huffman: Zero (excerpt)

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Zero
2019–20
Single-channel video, color, sound
72 minutes, 25 seconds
Courtesy of the artist and Anat Ebgi

Structured as a moviegoing experience—with previews, the body of the film, end credits, bloopers, and even a post-credits scene—Zero is rife with references to media and culture spanning the last 40 years. Much of the work consists of reversed clips culled from seemingly endless videos of car crashes, near misses, fights, and explosions, revealing the emotional and psychological void at the heart of the tragic videos we watch on our phones and computers nearly every day. Zero thus calls to mind the uniquely depressing experience of scrolling through social media or watching the news, in which stories of catastrophes are punctuated with tonally dissonant advertisements or memes. By the video’s end, the sampled audio is replaced by Huffman’s own voice describing anxiety, drugs, and the temporary release that pop culture consumption offers. This voiceover both complicates the function of a post-credit scene and underscores the theme at the center of the work: Huffman’s grappling with depression. Zero also makes clear Huffman’s self-professed desire to disrupt the hierarchy between the written and the visual, as text shares the screen throughout the video—styled as subtitles might be for a film or TV show. Yet instead of translating or clarifying its audio or imagery, Huffman’s poetic phrases add a complicating layer of meaning to the work. The chaotic imagery onscreen is untranslatable, conveying the impossibility of articulating depression to an audience.

Jibade-Khalil Huffman: Now That I Can Dance
Tufts University Art Galleries
Aidekman Arts Center / Medford
September 8, 2020—March 2021

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