CDJs Are Instruments: “What is an Ocean Between Us?” ft. DONIS and MORENXXX

Join us at e-flux on Thursday, December 15, at 7pm for the second edition of the music series CDJs Are Instruments: “What is an Ocean Between Us?” The series explores CDJs as tools for storytelling and live sets: While traditionally used for storytelling, CDJs are placed outside of the category of “live sets.” For each edition of the series, the performer(s) are invited to experiment with CDJs outside of a club setting, placing them adjacent to a sampler or any other electronic instrument used for a live performance. CDJs Are Instruments is an ongoing series at e-flux, and this second edition is curated in collaboration with Duneska Suannette and features performances by DONIS and MORENXXX. The event will end with a short talk and Q&A. 

Drawing its title from chapter four of Left of Karl Marx: The Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones, “What is an Ocean Between Us?” aims to both celebrate the multitudinous nature of the black diaspora experience and critique the cognitive dissonance that occurs within this identity, also understood as “the Great Camouflage,” an idea articulated by Suzanne Césaire. The event aims to celebrate the innate condition of being Caribbean, as being Caribbean is to practice errantry–it is to search for each other across oceans, time, and, in this case, through sound.

Books that informed this program are available at the Word is Change bookstore in Brooklyn.

DONIS, pronounced (DAH-NIS), is an Afro-Dominican DJ and producer born and raised in New York. Their style is rooted in the city’s soulful house music lineage. Through the growing club culture in their home borough of Brooklyn, they have expanded their sonic palette by playing various styles of electronic music and mixing US-centric styles with their Latin/Caribbean heritage. They have become well known in the underground scene by playing parties hosted by Papi Juice, Boiler Room, and Dweller Festival. In 2022 they released a single on Where Were You?, a music compilation by Somersault Records; scored two videos for Telfar; and been a resident artist at Nowadays.

Jesús Hilario-Reyes (aka MORENXXX) is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York. While situating their practice at the crossroads of sonic performance, land installation, and expanded cinema, their iterative works examine carnival and rave culture throughout the West; to take on a remedial approach to the effects of “destierro,” an untranslatable Spanish term that is most akin to being “torn from the land.” They’ve contextualized the term to traverse towards ideas of Black and Queer fugitivy. Interwoven in the midst of these notions is a concern for the im/possibility of the Black body and the failure of mechanical optics. Hilario-Reyes has developed a tender entanglement with their practice as a DJ to stimulate and conflict their artistic endeavors. They are a recipient of the Drawing a Blank artist grant, the Leslie-Lohman Museum Artist Fellowship, the Lighthouse Works’ Fellowship, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts residency. Hilario-Reyes has shown work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Black Star Film Festival, Mana Contemporary, Real Art Ways, Rudimento, Parasol Unit, and Gladstone Gallery.

Duneska Suannette is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores and re-imagines notions of connectedness throughout the Caribbean, specifically focusing on Hispañola. Their aim is to work towards an imagined future in which we can find ways to connect, despite colonially imposed cultural points of reference such as language, and doing so through the lens of decolonization. It was under this mission that Suannette founded the collective Guanábana in which they organized community-centered programming, their most important being the Monthly Vigils in Honor of Black Lives in which they offered free food and groceries, hosted speakers, as well as handed out zines speaking on the existence and perseverance of Black culture in countries such as Puerto Rico and how their freedom is so innately tethered to the freedom of Black Americans. The mission of Guanábana has now taken new forms as Suannette uses music as a medium to explore the interconnectedness of the Black Diasporic experience under their DJ name “La Duni.” Suannette has worked for multiple art organizations including Laundromat Project, Museum of Arts and Design, No Longer Empty, Bronx Arts Space, New Museum, Montez-Press Radio, and more.

e-flux music is curated by Sanna Almajedi.

For more information, please contact program@e-flux.com.

Accessibility
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program@e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.