Electric Dub Station Orbital Ignition

This site-specific installation and procession investigates the transatlantic colonial history of indigo, related to its production on plantations in Suriname, The Americas, Java and in Europe, including the Gelderland province of Arnhem. Orbital Ignition is part of the Electric Dub Station Series in which Iva Jankovic and A.J.Guzman research cultures of the Black Atlantic (Paul Gilroy) and Migratory Aesthetics (Mieke Bal).

Research into the history of indigo work is at the same time research into the alternative history of the Dutch nation. Indigo finds its origin in India. The African slave trade made it particularly valuable, the Indigo gunpowder was more powerful than the gun, because it was literally used as a means of payment.

African slaves transferred the knowledge of indigo cultivation to America. In the 1700s the profit of indigo was greater than that of sugar and cotton. The sonic structures and songs that the Africans sang in the indigo, sugar and coffee plantations had a profound influence on the history of music in America. The music frequencies were strongly influenced by the African rhythm and led directly to the Blues in the United States, Rumba in Cuba, Cumbia in Colombia, Bossa nova in Brazil and Dub in Jamaica. Dub is the heart of Reggae music and Reggaeton.

The impact that Dub has had on contemporary music production can hardly be overestimated. Electric Dub Station is a site-specific installation labyrinth and a Panamanian-Congolese procession. The project is produced for Sonsbeek and the Paiz Art Biennial, Guatemala, and consists of five hundred banner pieces and twenty Afro Futuristic Costumes, made with textile designer Iva Jankovic, the Guatemalan women's weaving cooperative: Trama Textiel and Indigo master Sufiyan Khatri. The costumes and the procession dance are inspired by the traditional rituals of the Maroon people of the Americas and the Sun Ra philosophy (The Father of Afro Futurism).

The Dub Sonic structure of Electric Dub Station is composed using Guzman's Panamanian DNA, mixed with Dub echoes, and loops and sounds from Maroon communities. A Dub Poetry work will be simulated during the procession. The installation takes the form of a reading passage, derived from books that reflect the tragic indigo colonial history on the plantations and its global economic impact on today's economy.

Photos: Django van Ardenne, Natascha Libbert, Marliese Steeman, Victor Wennekes.