Chameleon - Sylvester | Courtesy of Jaamil Olawale Kosoko and EMPAC
How to participate through Discord
Even if you've never used it before, Discord is a user-friendly platform that will allow you to engage in this work in a truly experiential way! Think of it like a group chat and phone call –with the artist and audience. Discord will allow you to get the most full experience of this work and we encourage you to try it out!
If this doesn't sound up your alley, you can simply watch American Chameleon: The Living Installments through picatv.org, the same as all other TBA:20 programs. This brief article is designed to help those who are looking to participate in the program through the platform Discord. Participating on Discord will unlock dual chat and video features where audience members can participate with Kosoko and each other. So, if you'd like to simply watch, read no further. If you'd like to participate, read on!
THE BASICS
Discord is free.
If you haven't used Discord before, you'll need to create an account. Do so, by clicking this link and filling out a few questions such as your email and birthday. It is a quick and easy set up! The Discord registration period closes one day before the event.
You can also download the platform app to run on our computer instead of the web browser version. There is an Installation Guide available with more downloading details.
DO I HAVE TO CREATE MY OWN SERVER?
No, you do not have a create your own server to join Chameleon. If prompted to do so you can press “skip” and move forward in creating your login.
THE CHANNELS
Discord has two different channels to communicate: a text channel and a voice channel.
Participants can be in a text channel only, a voice channel only, or in a text and voice channels simultaneously. When entering as an audience member, you will see a list of various channels on your left toolbar. Text channels are notated by a # and voice channels are notated by an audio image. If you are on a mobile device, swipe right and this toolbar will reveal itself.
WHEN THE EVENT BEGINS
Audience members will start in the voice channel Welcoming Station and text channel Welcoming-Station-Text. Ushers will be able to help you move into the correct channel if needed!
DURING THE EVENT
On the Discord site, please feel free to join various channels and experience the event as it moves between them. Simply click on the channel name to move to it!
Note, ASL will be avaibale on the live stream, but not the Discord site.
MORE INFO ON DISCORD
Below are a few videos and links to help you learn more about the details of Discord. Don't forget, you can always visit the Discord Support Page for further assistance!
Turn off the annoying notification noises
Courtesy of Jaamil Olawale Kosoko and EMPAC
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
American Chameleon: The Living Installments
Co-Presented with FringeArts
September 21 | 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM PDT
View and participate through Discord.com
View only on picatv.org
CLOSED CAPTIONING
American Chameleon: The Living Installments is a hybrid multimedia living artwork, instigated by Nigerian-American artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, that explores the ever-evolving ways in which digitality intersects with the fugitive realities and shapeshifting principles that Black queer people employ to survive and heal. The work also operates as a digital archive, a porous public performance in interactive pedagogy where Kosoko and collaborators seek to locate a space for healing both online and off. Kosoko and collaborators will host a series of events, including a film screening, discussion, and healing session, that aims to hold grief while also centering themes of liveness, beauty, humor, care, and joy.
The work operates as a flexible, digital commons. A pop-up community of organizers and practitioners centers adaptive interactive learning as a means of creating sustainable, multi-tiered networks of care. Occurring, in part, on the gaming platform Discord, The Living Installments is an experiment in creating a flexible space where Black voices feel comfortable thinking and speaking out loud. It’s a virtual venue for biomythographic* liveness conjuring chameleonic possibility and entanglement.
*“Biomythography” refers to Audre Lorde’s foundational work entitled Zami: A New Spelling of My Name published in 1982, which combines history, biography, and myth, and holds a literary perspective that serves as a guiding light for complex narrative storytelling rooted in a queer, Black self-defined, feminist imagination.