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.
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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.
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
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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 BassiliForrest CardamenisWill DiGravioRosalia Namsai EngchuanNicole Froio
 Kenneth GeurtsSharon Lam
 Daeseon LeeJina Lee
Printing:  Wilco BV Amersfoort
Press:  Monochromator Press
Website:  OKOK Services

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