CA Davis: A Jungle, interrupted

What did the jungles of Vietnam sound like before, during, and after the war from 1965 to 1995?
A Jungle, Interrupted is an experimental audio documentary and timelapse that features key moments—reimagined and repurposed through sound—over roughly thirty years before, during, and after the Vietnam War. Davis asks: what does the deep rumble of the free market sound like and how did it overtake the otherwise undisturbed Vietnamese rainforests? What would propel a decade of extreme, confused violence, and was it worth the bloodshed?

In his first solo exhibit, Davis creates a room-shaking, fifteen-minute surround sound piece that traces the tragic and deadly ironies, lies, and realities comprising the Vietnam War. This, staged among ephemera and original illustrations by Chicago-based visual artist Keith Couture, are laid bare for us to sit with and listen through in hopes that we may gain a clearer understanding of the relationship between capitalism and the endless conflicts that occur for or against its profits.

About the artist:
CA is a Black-Filipino-Italian-American multimodal storyteller and documentarian from Carmel, Indiana currently completing his graduate degree at Northwestern University. His most recent documentary, Inhuman Figures: Robots, Clones, and Aliens, was released by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and he is also the creator and host of a LATTO Thought, an audio documentary series exploring the histories and social developments of interracial life central to the United States. His work has been featured by TriQuarterly Magazine, Filmscalpel, and RØDE Microphones. See more of CA's work at CADavis.me.

Through sound and image I explore forgotten, overlooked, and complex histories of racial colonialism and imperialism perpetrated by the United States to better understand mixed racial American identities in the present. The nature of race is not biological, but it is material—our bodies are the historical evidence of oppression, economics, love, war, social justice, and moral bankruptcy. As such, I captivate my audiences with intricately edited stories, sound designs, and films so as to better invite people to learn from otherwise difficult history.

Curator: Sylver Wallace

Made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.