Videowork
ADONIS_XXX: Video Channel 2, color, sound, 13:31 min "Cumpilation Video"
ADONIS_XXX: Video Channel 1.5, Color, sound, 22:33 min. "Becoming Adonis"
ADONIS_XXX: Video Channel 3, color, sound, 23:26 min.
IN SEARCH OF ADONIS_XXX
Above are stills showing three of four channels in the multichannel video installation In Search of Adonis_XXX. Due to the sensitive nature of the content, contact Immanuel J. for viewing.
ADONIS_XXX: Video Channel 1.5, Color, sound, 22:33 min.
“BECOMING ADONIS”
This video channel shows documentation of Immanuel J.'s attempts to perform queered masculinity through ritualistic exercise and diaristic image making. Overlaid atop Immanuel J.'s likeness are found CGI renderings of “generic” and “idyllic” man proportions and IMVU sex scenes. Backtracking these images is audio taken from Immanuel J.'s time spent in erotic chatrooms. These men perform hyper masculinity through their voice using idioms typically associated with straight men.
ADONIS_XXX: Video Channel 2, color, sound, 13:31 min
“BLACK-N-GAY-BLACK-N-GAY-BLACK-N-FIT
CUMPILATION VIDEO”
Images of Blackness, gayness, and maleness all cut to a beat.
ADONIS_XXX: Video Channel 3, color, sound, 23:26 min.
“UNTITLED”
This video is an edited documentation of a private durational performance where Immanuel J. spent the entire day body checking— a practice where someone frequently inspects their physical appearance. Immanuel J. uses a pair of scissors, a marker, baby oil, and sugar, and follows the choreography of the surgeons of Goals plastic surgery within a video produced to promote the business. In the video, social media stars Ms. Netta and Charles, known for their Blackness, ugliness, fatness, and queerness document their consultation and surgery to get discounted plastic surgery. Overlaid atop this video is a text written by Immanuel J. connecting internet desirability as social capital and the current rising desire for queer erotic chatrooms— where Black gay men perform regimes of domination— acting as a pressure release valve.
2024
“The source material for this video is primarily found footage from internet archives dedicated to Black queer porn. However, the video presents itself to be more explicit than it actually is. I focused my source material on erotic videos occurring between the 70s to 90s. This falls within what was considered the Golden age for gay porn. The sexual liberation movement– beginning in the 1960s through 2000– marked a shift to a bolder daily practice of radical resistance through public sex for gay men. From this, a dominant culture of bodily hyper fixation, desirability, and experimentation with narcotics came to be. Queer theory has now come to claim depictions of gay male erotica during this time as a form of radical self-fashioning for men loving men. This is a term called pornoethnography coming from queer academic Jerry Yung-Ching Chang. However, Black queer studies interrogate the notion of porn as a form of self-fashioning by complicating notions of authorship and viewership. I depict the highly stereotyped black queer bodies of the 70s through 90s and treat them with tenderness and care. At the same time, I wish to also implicate the viewer in the sin of sodomy– thus the video’s location [set on the steps of Bard College’s Chapel].
Furthermore, I intersperse breaks in the film with a black screen to implicate the viewer in the spectacle of viewing. A central idea behind this video– which connects to the rest of this installation– is to disrupt the day-to-day flow of institutional church affairs using systematically marginalized bodies typically denied entry. I display these bodies engaged in some of the ultimate forms of pleasure– dance, sex, eating, and laughing. Perhaps this visual conflict may cause viewers to take pause, and be either shocked or amused, among other reactions.
The second half of this video is the infomercial Creflo Dollar Ministries released asking for donations. This comes after the audio of him denying ever asking for anyone to help him pay for his private jet. It is meant to highlight contradictions that occur between what one preaches and what one does.”
Excerpt from GOD, ARE YOU THERE?’s artist statement by Immanuel J.
God are you there? (It’s not me, it’s you).
2022
We Dance, We Cry, We Rise, Die,
2021
We die, we die, we die,
DONUTSSSSSS,
2021
It’s Thanksgiving. Son tries to get Mom to eat.