Each year, the MacArthur Foundation announces its MacArthur Fellows or “Geniuses,” a class of researchers, scientists, artists, entrepreneurs and more who are changing the world through their endless creativity and groundbreaking contributions. And each year, Under the Radar with Callie Crossley highlights New England recipients of the award through its ongoing series “The Genius Next Door.” This is the final installment highlighting the Class of 2024.

Tony Cokes, a professor of modern culture and media at Brown University, is transforming the moving image to shine new light on some of history’s darkest moments. By using text, music, found footage, journalistic writing and more, Cokes re-contextualizes traumatic moments in American history and creates video-based artwork.

“I tend to look at particular moments or sets of moments as almost case studies or maybe differential ways of thinking about our implication in media culture,” Cokes said.

Cokes originally started as a traditional video essayist, combining archival footage with text and music. His work has since evolved into mixing images, words and sound to discuss various topics like pop culture, art theory, terrorism and more.

One of his pieces, “Evil.16 (Torture.Musik),” flashes text from a 2005 article on advanced interrogation techniques to the rhythm of songs, including Britney Spears’ “...Baby One More Time,” Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and even the theme songs of the children’s shows, “Barney” and “Sesame Street,” all used by U.S. troops to torture prisoners.

“I can’t reproduce those conditions for the listening, but there is something disquieting about being able to recognize almost everything in it,” Cokes said. “So it’s kind of almost anything repeated at high volume and looped where you’re not in control of it can have catastrophic effects.”

Rather than presenting the widely circulated images from the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib or the destruction of the World Trade Center with minimal context, Cokes wants to provide thoughtful, nuanced commentary on U.S. history.

“There had been journalistic and even academic studies of [advanced interrogation techniques] often including playlists of music that had been used in those contexts,” Cokes told GBH’s Under the Radar host Callie Crossley. “But I wasn’t aware of anyone who had actually juxtaposed the music and the commentary. And so that became a piece.”

Cokes’ immersive media art does not fit in a box. His work has a “collage aesthetic.”

“I see video as a platform where you can combine text, music and images,” Cokes says. “The art world sometimes gets a little carried away with desires to categorize things, and it’s sort of like — well, I’m not sure that the categorical is the best approach for understanding what and how I do it.”

Though Cokes does not have a concrete plan to use the $800,000 award, he has a broad idea of what it will go to.

“I think I will be able to do projects at a scale without necessarily having to worry about how they might get done, which is freeing in itself,” Cokes says. “I mean, I think it just allows you to think in different ways.”

Guest

  • Tony Cokes, media artist, Brown University professor and member of the 2024 class of MacArthur “Genius” Fellows.