Rashaad Newsome, an interdisciplinary artist, showcased his work “Assembly” at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. “Assembly is a new, site-specific commission” that uses VR, artificial intelligence, and dancers to build an immersive environment. Newsome’s piece “highlights and champions vogueing — a stylized form of dance invented by pioneers of Black and trans culture whose ideas have gone mainstream in America.” Those who visit are surrounded by video-mapped walls and in the center, there is a “30-foot-tall hologram sculpture of vogue performers.” Newsome utilizes many different forms of art to create a new world entirely: “collage, sculpture, film, photography, music, computer programming, software engineering, community organizing, and performance.” Newsomes powerful work excels at inviting the audience into a space built to allow sound and visuals to completely take over.

“The nexus of “Assembly” is Being, Newsome’s nonbinary, non-raced AI progeny, who transcends categorizations while invoking African aesthetics and myth.”

NYC-ARTS