Future Kwaai Records, an avant garde label founded by South African artist Umlilo, is excited to unveil an exciting music and art project titled Enigmata/darkO. During the first lockdown in 2020, avant-garde artists A.L.V and Francois Knoetze collaborated on a conceptual project which mixes music and visual art.
Listen to the album here:
Enigmata/darkO encapsulates A.L.V’s obscure music album accompanied by a sculpture designed by Francois Knoetze. The project explores the concealing of the divine, and archaic through the use of modern day waste materials true to Knoetze’s style of recycled art. The Enigmata sculpture captures the essence of an outer darkness that hides an inner light, and a primordial being that arrives through the fabrics of the modern African. The sculpture reflects the two conceptual dimensions that are shared between A.L.V, the commissioner, and Francois Knoetze, the principal artist.
Renowned Performance Artist, Filmmaker and Sculptor, Francois Knoetze, (Optimus Usimede (2016), Cape Mango (2013-2016), Virtual Frontiers (2017), Core Dump (2018-2019)), captures this inter-layered concept through the blend between ancient western symbology and traditional African aesthetics. The faceless structure mirrors Georges Bataille’s headless Acephale, the splitting Kudu horns mirrors the ancestry of the Eastern Cape, Makhanda, the multiple breasts mirrors the Greek Goddess Ephesian Artemis, all imbued, within the blackened flesh of Africa's modernity. The Enigmata, is a life size sculpture standing approximately 1.2 meters in height, 1.2 metres in width and 1.8 metres in length and is a plastiglomerate figure, etched in the materials of black paint, concrete, plastic and bone.
"I am thinking of the meeting of concrete, plastic, bone, and horn as a time-based play between the primordial and the man-made - a plastiglomerate figure perched at the edge of the abyss as a fossil for future beings to marvel at." - Francois Knoetze
The Filmic Unveiling of The Enigmata showcases the many dimensions that interpret the sculpture within its obscure and inexplicable arrival.
Watch the unveiling of the Enigmata sculpture here:
The Enigmata is both accompanied by Cover Art and Visualizers for A.L.V’s Seventh Official Album darkO. The Visualizer is the showcase of A.L.V first official single from darkO.
darkO is A.L.V’s seventh sonic album adding to his previous repertoire including Swan/Void (2015), Pinnacle (2015), Prince of Darkness (2016), Majesty (2018), Conspiracy (2019), Black Sun (2019). It is a tribute to Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (2001) and through the expression of Francois Knoetze’s Enigmata sculpture, it provides theological engagement of seeing “through a glass darkly”. Apostle Saint Paul’s verse comes to mind in Corinthians 13:12 which reads: “For now, we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known". darkO, would become darkly, that is, God's absurdity, or the search for God amidst man's inability to truly know that silent voice. It is presented in chapters as follows:
Darko, Chapter One
Spectre, Chapter Two
Urizen, Chapter Three
God, Chapter Four
Stigmata, Chapter Five
Time, Chapter Six
Ulro, Chapter Seven
Eschaton, Chapter Eight
The narrative of A.L.V's darkO is an interplay between a psychological study and a sonic continuity. darkO is grounded within Donnie's world, the original protagonist of Donnie Darko, while the sonic continuity is the artistic themes of Donnie’s psychology. This symbiosis moves from a centralised beginning, Chapter One, Darko, to a body in the middle, Chapter Four, God, to a perceived vision of the end, Eschaton, Chapter Eight. A.L.V'S darkO captures the intermeshed concepts of the remerging of Donnie Darko, 2001, through an avant-garde interpretation that fuses cinematic narration, theological Christian sentiments, mythological figures of William Blake, with a progressive, abrupt and fragmented sound, that transgresses the limit, interpreting the obscurity of seeing through a glass darkly, while paying homage, to Donnie's vision of God's Absurdity.
For media enquiries, interviews and additional info please email futurekwaai@gmail.com
Francois Knoetze's, Enigmata (2021) credits
Concept: Francois Knoetze and A.L.V
The Principal Artist: Francois Knoetze
Designer and Sculptor: Francois Knoetze
The Commissioner: A.L.V
The Unveiling,
Enigmata (2021)
Visuals and Green Screen - Francois Knoetze
Photography and Grading - Francois Knoetze
Editing and Time Coding: A.L.V
Sound Engineering and Design
- Francois Knoetze and A.L.V
A.L.V’s darkO (2021)
Sound Engineering and Design: A.L.V
Mastering and Mixing: A.L.V
Label: Future Kwaai
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