Issue 01 — Birth of a Nation
MONOCHROMATOR deconstructs selected films under a shared monochrome to reconstruct them for social relevance, putting the cinematic, the cultural, the artistic and the political in dialogue.
The first issue of MONOCHROMATOR deconstructs Barbie and Oppenheimer under a shared monochrome of “Birth of a Nation.” In 1945, the United States was reborn as the empire we experience, through the hard military power of the atomic bomb and the ‘soft’ capitalist power of corporations such as Mattel. MONOCHROMATOR takes Barbenheimer and proposes to rethink the blockbuster phenomenon within the landscape of current political and social discourses.
In “Refraction,”
we uproot and replant the phenomenon of Barbenheimer through a trip to Walmart.
In “Wavelength,”
we displace Barbie and Oppenheimer. We look at their spatial, existential, and democratic contexts, and imagine if Barbie were a biopic and Oppenheimer were a fantasy.
In “Interference,”
we look into the said and the unsaid of Barbenheimer.
- Barbie’s Dreamhouse Adventures TV series poster © Mattel Creations, 2018
- Security poster for Manhattan Project © Retrieved October 10, 2014 from Leslie R. Groves, Ed. (~1948) Manhattan District History, Manhattan Project, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Book IV: Pile Project, Vol. 6: Operations, Appendix B, C, D & E, p. 109
- Leslie Groves and J.R. Oppenheimer, 1942 © United States Department of Energy
- 1912 image of women assembling dolls © National Archives at College Park
Refraction
Editor’s Letter: Birth of a Nation / Alex Heeyeon Kil
Wavelength
Weighted Hopes, Harmonic Synthesizer / Jina Lee
Invented Places, Faraway Follies / Sharon Lam
Now I am Become Death: Creation and Existentialism in the American Imaginary / Forrest Cardamenis
American Narcissus / Kenneth Geurts
The Postfeminist Delusion / Nicole Froio
Manhattan, Mattel, and the Democratic Myths of America / Will DiGravio
Interference
Birth of a Nation was the Death of Indigenous Peoples / Editorial Team
Dolls of War, War of Dolls / Daeseon Lee
Behind Enemy Lines: On the American Blockbuster / Rafaela Bassili
We Cannot Care For Who We Are Unable to Relate to / Rosalia Namsai Engchuan
MONOCHROMATOR Issue 01
Publisher: Veronica Jinseon Yu
Editor-in-Chief: Alex Heeyeon Kil
Design: Cleo Tew and Alex Walker with assistance from June Yang
Contributors: Rafaela BassiliJina LeeWill DiGravioForrest CardamenisRosalia Namsai EngchuanEd LukerNicole FroioKenneth GeurtsDaeseon Lee
Press: Matter Press
Website: OKOK Services
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