Walking into ARTECHOUSE, you’re immersed in beautifully tranquil electronic music: the beating of a drum paired with spoken word. On the walls around you, the energetic and electrifying moving imagery of futuristic environments and animated golden sculptures of Black people tell a carefully crafted story of the Black experience and, moreover, Black excellence. This is the award-winning “Ase: Afro Frequencies” by London-based artist Vince Fraser, now on view in New York City for the first time.
The experience launched in ARTECHOUSE’s Miami location for Art Basel in 2020 (where it was named ‘Best Exhibition’ in Time Out Miami’s ‘Best of the City 2021 Awards’) before moving to the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas and then to ARTECHOUSE in Washington, D.C. Ase (pronounced “AH-shay”) translates to “so will it be”—a mantra and philosophical belief of the Yoruba people of West Africa that they have the power to produce change—and the installation communicates the complexities of the Black experience.
“Ase” is a continuation of “We Rise Above,” also by Fraser: an Afrosurrealism augmented reality experience app created by ARTECHOUSE to mark the anniversary of the March on Washington and to express solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The app responds to augmented reality markers on the massive Black Lives Matter mural that leads to the steps of the White House, triggering a rush of BLM fists to rise above the street art when viewed through a phone screen.
Rio Vander Stahl, the New York art space’s director of digital strategy, told Observer that Fraser became interested in using A.I. in his work while “Ase” was at ARTECHOUSE Miami.
“The use of artificial intelligence by Black artists is revolutionizing the way in which ancestral heritage is preserved, shared, and explored,” the artist wrote on Instagram last year. In the centerpiece of the exhibition, Vision of the Black Experience, the cinematic spatial show projected on the walls and floors of ARTECHOUSE’s main underground exhibition space, A.I. powers rapidly changing animations—African kings and queens assume different poses and their outfits and hairstyles morph seamlessly as visitors journey alongside them.
On the upper level, the interactive auxiliary galleries explore the themes of rebirth and community in Thousand Masks, a second audio-visual piece with six different screens labeled “artifacts” that display metallic masks of varying shapes on silhouettes that transform as the viewer moves past them, while the ambient gallery is filled with recited poetry by spoken word artist, Ursula Rucker.
The beating of drums and delicately performed spoken word echo in the space, complementing Vision of Black Experience on the lower level. Once Fraser composed the drum track, he decided he needed the spoken word to help convey the narrative. Fraser told Observer he’s been a longtime fan of rucker and that her poetry was the missing element of the installation. Notably, this is the first installation at ARTECHOUSE to have a spoken component and to tell a cohesive story.
“A takeaway from my work would be that we must remain persistent, self-driven, and motivated for the culture.” Fraser, who identifies as an Afro-surrealist artist and activist, said. His objective is to share a message of positivity and hope about the future for Black people.
Vision of the Black Experience is a journey into Afrocentricity and Afrofuturism told with animations of golden link chains, skyscrapers and imagery of levitating Black women in golden headdresses holding hands. Some chapters include visuals of geometric patterns like triangles and spirals rendered in electric blue and orange and golden statues of people on motorbikes and spaceships. These and other powerful images paired with rucker’s recitation of her poem “Queen/King King/Queen” are a cultural celebration. Her words convey the deep emotion she has felt during trying times, including in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, but she offers hope for the future.
“Sometimes as writers and artists, we can’t talk, but all we want is to tell somebody about how we need something and why we need it and have somebody be interested in our perspective,” rucker told Observer. “My writing process was to take in all the images and research I have done and just let it all flow.”
This is one of Fraser’s first major shows in the United States. He recently collaborated with Denver Digerati for Infinite loops : Navigating the Labyrinth of AI’s current reality, an immersive projection displayed on Denver, Colorado’s historic Daniels & Fisher Tower as part of the Digerati Emergent Media Festival. It was a moving image of a Black woman in astronaut gear in a futuristic city—foreshadowing the people’s attire morphing into futuristic armor and spacesuits in Vision of the Black Experience and perhaps hinting at Fraser installations yet to come.
“Ase: Afro Frequencies” is on view at ARTECHOUSE NYC through the summer.
