Invernomuto & Jim C. Nedd
“PICO: Un parlante de Africa en America”
HD video, stereo sound, 60 minutes
Introduced by Deborah Joyce Holman
Year: 2017
The documentary focuses on the Colombian tradition of Picós, profusely decorated sound systems that animate street parties of the Costa Atlantica. Picós’ history can be traced back to the 1960s, yet its roots are deeper, originating during the time of slavery routes, when coastal cities like Barranquilla and Cartagena played a central role as access points in the trade.
Deborah Joyce Holman: PICO is a collaborative film by Invernomuto (Simone Bertuzzi & SImone Trabucchi) and Jim C. Nedd, alongside which other formats were also produced, such as a Guarapo compilation. How did this collaboration develop?
Invernomuto: PICO: Un Parlante de Africa en America was born as a commission from Plusdesign, a gallery based in Milan. When they asked us to embark on this journey, we immediately invited Jim C. Nedd and later Taliesin Gilkes–Bower as co-producer, with whom we collaborated for our previous film Negus.
Simone Bertuzzi: I’ve been interested in Picos for a long time, mainly through being in contact with Fabian Altahona Romero, who is featured in therwe film. He’s responsible for having diffused Pico culture worldwide through his blog Africolombia. In 2010, I translated an interview with Fabian about the history of Picos in Barranquilla and published it on my blog Palm Wine. We’ve been in touch ever since and, of course, he was the first person we contacted when the project started. Fabian was the key to access the whole scene, especially in Barranquilla.
Jim C. Nedd: We’ve been collaborating since we first met in 2012. PICO was the solidification of our friendship growing into a partnership. During the production of the film, we achieved a collective vision of storytelling. For me it was also a moment of reconnection with my own heritage—especially with those childhood memories of neighbors gathering.
We then came across the genre Guarapo while filming PICO. A few months later, we started co-producing GUARAPO! (Forty Bangers From Barranquilla) alongside the UK record company Honest Jon’s, showcasing the work of Edwin Producciones, DJ Ander and Jeanpi Perreo—three producers from Barranquilla with whom we generated about 55 Guarapo tracks in 25 days, extracting samples from an archive of West African music provided by the label.
DJH: Guarapo grew out of a mix of African music and local music, creating a new genre in the 2000s. It still is the most present in the Caribbean-Colombian cities that have a higher population of Afro-descendants. What were some of the political or social shifts that paralleled the turn to African music? How does its history and its origins connect to the contemporary Pico culture?
SB: According to Deborah Pacini Hernandez in her 1996 text Sound Systems, World Beat and Diasporan Identity in Cartagena, Colombia, “the transnational term música africana suggests that Black Cartageneros tacitly acknowledged the existence of and their participation in an African diasporic community, whose boundaries transcended national borders”.
This is probably the main reason why African music became very important in Northern Colombia from the 1970s on. From a wider perspective, it’s also interesting to note that costeños in Colombia were listening to African music way before even a vague idea of World Music was introduced in the Western music industry.
JN: Guarapo is a derivative genre of Champeta, which is the Colombian version of Afrobeat; a genre that became popular in the 1980s. Champeta was founded by the community of Palenque, then spread across the coast of Colombia. The arrival of West African records in the country is part of a process that started with the recollection of memories and mimics of African music whose traces were gone.
Photo: Jim C. Nedd “Carnival Verbena”, Rebolo, B.Quilla, February 2017.
DJH: All of you work with music in different forms, which transpires throughout the film in the layering of image and sound, the background noises, the visibility of a recording device held by one of the “loyal followers and lovers of Pico culture”. Could you speak about your approach to these constituents?
IM: We always consider image and sound on the same level—even in this film, which is probably the closest to a documentary in linguistic terms that we’ve ever made. We are glad you’re mentioning the recording device: it almost happened by chance in Negus and we decided to replicate this technique in PICO. It’s a very simple gesture but it connects us—and spectators—with the speaker in a magical and intimate way. We love to create complex relations between image and sound, questioning which one is more evident and why and challenging these relations.
JN: We realized that the Afro-Colombian identity and sound needed to be expressed in their own complexities. There were things that had to be told verbally not just visually, the choral need of telling a story was very present, so we went with that.
As both a photographer and a vocal performer, PICO was also the perfect platform to invest my feelings into. I can especially recognize myself in the look and the sexuality of the young crowds in Barranquilla during the Guarapo verbenas. On the other hand, I can also see myself on stage, doing vocals over a track. Both are complementary states of shared psychedelia making it into an experience that never adapted to the Western “progress”. I always feel that verbenas are magic rituals that threat Pico as a living character but also as a place to meet in a different dimension.
DJH: When addressing the origins of Pico culture and when highlighting the notable absence of women in the scene, you draw parallels to two other films. Could you say a bit more about them and how they connect to your film?
Simone Trabucchi: It’s very important for us to create a kaleidoscope of narrations and representations. I see the picture in picture as an evocation. We used La Queimada (Burn! in English), a semi-historical movie directed by the Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo in 1969, starring Marlon Brando, to bring in the space/time of our narration. It was important to show a staged version of something we were trying to portray in the most unstaged way possible.
The other excerpt comes from a local TV show. The footage is very beautiful but the voice over is so problematic, it confirms the male-centered attitude. It was impossible to meet Keyla while in Barranquilla, but her presence in the film was fundamental so we invoked her by using this controversial footage.
Credits
A film by Invernomuto
Co-director: Jim C. Nedd
Produced by Plusdesign
Co-producer: Taliesin Gilkes-Bower
Assistant editor: Mattia Capelletti
Sound design: Invernomuto
Audio mix: Lorenzo Dal Ri
Invernomuto & Jim C. Nedd
“PICO: Un parlante de Africa en America”
Introduced by Deborah Joyce Holman
HD video, stereo sound, 60 minutes
Year: 2017
The documentary focuses on the Colombian tradition of Picós, profusely decorated sound systems that animate street parties of the Costa Atlantica. Picós’ history can be traced back to the 1960s, yet its roots are deeper, originating during the time of slavery routes, when coastal cities like Barranquilla and Cartagena played a central role as access points in the trade.
Deborah Joyce Holman: PICO is a collaborative film by Invernomuto (Simone Bertuzzi & SImone Trabucchi) and Jim C. Nedd, alongside which other formats were also produced, such as a Guarapo compilation. How did this collaboration develop?
Invernomuto: PICO: Un Parlante de Africa en America was born as a commission from Plusdesign, a gallery based in Milan. When they asked us to embark on this journey, we immediately invited Jim C. Nedd and later Taliesin Gilkes–Bower as co-producer, with whom we collaborated for our previous film Negus.
Simone Bertuzzi: I’ve been interested in Picos for a long time, mainly through being in contact with Fabian Altahona Romero, who is featured in therwe film. He’s responsible for having diffused Pico culture worldwide through his blog Africolombia. In 2010, I translated an interview with Fabian about the history of Picos in Barranquilla and published it on my blog Palm Wine. We’ve been in touch ever since and, of course, he was the first person we contacted when the project started. Fabian was the key to access the whole scene, especially in Barranquilla.
Jim C. Nedd: We’ve been collaborating since we first met in 2012. PICO was the solidification of our friendship growing into a partnership. During the production of the film, we achieved a collective vision of storytelling. For me it was also a moment of reconnection with my own heritage—especially with those childhood memories of neighbors gathering.
We then came across the genre Guarapo while filming PICO. A few months later, we started co-producing GUARAPO! (Forty Bangers From Barranquilla) alongside the UK record company Honest Jon’s, showcasing the work of Edwin Producciones, DJ Ander and Jeanpi Perreo—three producers from Barranquilla with whom we generated about 55 Guarapo tracks in 25 days, extracting samples from an archive of West African music provided by the label.
DJH: Guarapo grew out of a mix of African music and local music, creating a new genre in the 2000s. It still is the most present in the Caribbean-Colombian cities that have a higher population of Afro-descendants. What were some of the political or social shifts that paralleled the turn to African music? How does its history and its origins connect to the contemporary Pico culture?
SB: According to Deborah Pacini Hernandez in her 1996 text Sound Systems, World Beat and Diasporan Identity in Cartagena, Colombia, “the transnational term música africana suggests that Black Cartageneros tacitly acknowledged the existence of and their participation in an African diasporic community, whose boundaries transcended national borders”.
This is probably the main reason why African music became very important in Northern Colombia from the 1970s on. From a wider perspective, it’s also interesting to note that costeños in Colombia were listening to African music way before even a vague idea of World Music was introduced in the Western music industry.
JN: Guarapo is a derivative genre of Champeta, which is the Colombian version of Afrobeat; a genre that became popular in the 1980s. Champeta was founded by the community of Palenque, then spread across the coast of Colombia. The arrival of West African records in the country is part of a process that started with the recollection of memories and mimics of African music whose traces were gone.
Photo: Jim C. Nedd “Carnival Verbena”, Rebolo, B.Quilla, February 2017.
DJH: All of you work with music in different forms, which transpires throughout the film in the layering of image and sound, the background noises, the visibility of a recording device held by one of the “loyal followers and lovers of Pico culture”. Could you speak about your approach to these constituents?
IM: We always consider image and sound on the same level—even in this film, which is probably the closest to a documentary in linguistic terms that we’ve ever made. We are glad you’re mentioning the recording device: it almost happened by chance in Negus and we decided to replicate this technique in PICO. It’s a very simple gesture but it connects us—and spectators—with the speaker in a magical and intimate way. We love to create complex relations between image and sound, questioning which one is more evident and why and challenging these relations.
JN: We realized that the Afro-Colombian identity and sound needed to be expressed in their own complexities. There were things that had to be told verbally not just visually, the choral need of telling a story was very present, so we went with that.
As both a photographer and a vocal performer, PICO was also the perfect platform to invest my feelings into. I can especially recognize myself in the look and the sexuality of the young crowds in Barranquilla during the Guarapo verbenas. On the other hand, I can also see myself on stage, doing vocals over a track. Both are complementary states of shared psychedelia making it into an experience that never adapted to the Western “progress”. I always feel that verbenas are magic rituals that threat Pico as a living character but also as a place to meet in a different dimension.
DJH: When addressing the origins of Pico culture and when highlighting the notable absence of women in the scene, you draw parallels to two other films. Could you say a bit more about them and how they connect to your film?
Simone Trabucchi: It’s very important for us to create a kaleidoscope of narrations and representations. I see the picture in picture as an evocation. We used La Queimada (Burn! in English), a semi-historical movie directed by the Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo in 1969, starring Marlon Brando, to bring in the space/time of our narration. It was important to show a staged version of something we were trying to portray in the most unstaged way possible.
The other excerpt comes from a local TV show. The footage is very beautiful but the voice over is so problematic, it confirms the male-centered attitude. It was impossible to meet Keyla while in Barranquilla, but her presence in the film was fundamental so we invoked her by using this controversial footage.
Credits
A film by Invernomuto
Co-director: Jim C. Nedd
Produced by Plusdesign
Co-producer: Taliesin Gilkes-Bower
Assistant editor: Mattia Capelletti
Sound design: Invernomuto
Audio mix: Lorenzo Dal Ri