A fractured narrative about an unnamed man whose racial identity is redrawn and contested by clusters of impassioned vloggers as they recount a series of viral media scandals involving famous African American men. The work explores a new social landscape where cascades of disinformation, rumors, and insinuations spread wildly across electronic networks, aggravated by racist mobs and algorithms that favor scandals, conflict, and conspiracy theories.
Originally presented as a multi-channel gallery installation in 2012, Now he’s out in public and everyone can see was made into a film because it seemed, in the moments before the 2016 elections, to foreshadow the current political crisis. Composed of vlogs made during the Obama era, the work depicts non-experts giving expert opinions, monologues replacing dialogue, fictions woven into facts, and the viral spread of emotion, anger, and judgement in cacophonous echo chambers.