Madness Remixed

Contains flashing images. From Beyonce to Miley Cyrus to Diana ross, all have worn Josephine Baker’s now infamous Banana Skirt, performed by Baker in 1927 in a show entitled ‘La Folie Du Jour’ (The Madness of the Day). The Banana skirt is an exoticisation of the Black body, yet it continues to be worn in homage and appropriation. ‘Madness Remixed’ examines the fetishisation of Josephine Baker’s body through data moshing analogue film. Seen here in ‘Siren of the Tropics’ (1927) washing the whiteface from her body in the bath, Josephine Baker is compared with a film fetish, a 16mm abstraction optically printed with latex and glitter. Cultural labour is contrasted with plantation labour, what unfolds is a questioning of which images of Black bodies should be reproduced and on what terms.