For The Record: On the Politics of Music Video CultureFor The Record: On the Politics of Music Video Culture

The web publication is the outcome of the research project _For the Record, _initiated by Het Nieuwe Instituut in 2018. The project investigated how contemporary music video culture operates as a public space for consumerism, activism and emancipation, by exposing existing realities and by imagining alternatives. In order to do this, _For the Record _documented and reflected upon the technologies, spatial design and forms of representation deployed in music video and live events, using public programmes and video production as the main methodology.

Topics explored by For the Record included gender roles and feminist positions in popular music videos, forms of representation and decolonising cultural institutions through a close reading of the Carters' Apeshit video, K-pop fandoms and digital diaspora, staging realities and world-building in music videos and live events, and design tactics for collective music experiences during the pandemic, among many other themes.

Fortherecord.video aims to involve fans, artists, designers, researchers and practitioners from different fields and territories to engage in an ongoing exchange about contemporary music video culture. You are invited to navigate the publication with its essays, videos and playlists through tags, links and queries, and to contribute your own video annotations or thematic video playlist.

The web publication will be launched through this online event, with contributions by artist and cultural historian Sary Zananiri and architect and urban theorist Dele Adeyemo, among others.

The competing political claims around Jerusalem regularly make news headlines, showing the highly fragmented nature of the city. In such a politicised place, what role does popular culture play shaping politics realities and bolstering contestation? This talk looks at the how popular culture, both historical and contemporary, has shaped the local and global realities of the contested city.

The rise of Afrobeats, has brought life from the streets across West Africa, in cities like Lagos and Accra to the centre of a black global culture. Yet, before there was Afrobeats with an 'S' - a sound called Afro-beat had to be invented. From the legendary Nigerian musician and freedom fighter, Fela Kuti, came an electrifying fusion of jazz, highlife and traditional West African sounds that ignited Africa's popular music scene in the 70's and 80's. This short vox pop explores the historic and contemporary significance of these movements in West African popular music from the grassroots perspective of a group of creatives based in Lagos.