Afroprojection #1: The Sweet Atmosphere Phased at 120° and Went Blank When the Universe Collapsed (2018) dir. Gio Escobar

Founded in 2016 by Gio Escobar, the Brooklyn collective Standing on the Corner is a genre-bending new voice in experimental art. In conceptual performances, their music creates textured suites from jazz, soul, rock, and spoken-word sources. The Sweet Atmosphere Phased at 120º and Went Blank! When The Universe Collapsed, which screened at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in 2019, is their psychedelic, cinematic tapestry, with contributions from Solange, Earl Sweatshirt, and more. In an opening PowerPoint lecture, Terence Nance, the film’s narrator, frames the film as “action-based” psychotherapy, which targets trauma embedded in the history of the African diaspora. Although Escobar explained that this process is personal, set in the “secret classroom” of one’s own mind, it also deals with the “interdimensional gunk of the unconscious,” present-day weight resulting from alternate-universe versions of the self, and by extension, one’s ancestors.