Black Code/Code Noir

Black Code/Code Noir

Production country: 
FR
Year: 
2015
Duration: 
20'
Edition: 
2016
Format: 
film/video

Black Code/Code Noir brings together various temporally and geographically disparate elements into a critical reflection on two recent events: the respective murders of Michael Brown and Kajieme Powell by police officers in Missouri, US, in 2014. The film uses the Internet as a site of excavation: videos recorded on mobile phones and uploaded to YouTube, the forming of social networks as both meeting points for demonstration and remembrance, and the online (mis)representation through state controlled media. Arguing that behind these murders is a sedimented history of slavery that has been preserved by the Black Code laws that were written for the colonies in the Americas beginning in the 17th century, Black Code/Code Noir claims that these codes have transformed into the algorithms that guide present-day Big Data policing, yet the intent remains the same: to design the lives of African Americans, to keep them within the capitalist exploitation system.

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