Twist, the path things take (2022)

Twist - the path things take

by Avery Youngblood

Cast: Avery Youngblood

Music: Twist by Thom Yorke (mix)

roots, rhizome, origins, connectedness, interlinked, bastardization, submerge, emerge, burrow, survive, adapt, twist, grounded, uprooted.

Twist - the path things take, is a video that uses nature as a metaphor to explore the non-origin of Blackness as a racial identity. The stripping of one’s name and roots. To be uprooted, like a tree, attempting to search for solid ground, a foundation, an origin. Almost like a child you have to be reborn upon reborn into society and culture without acceptance and knowledge of the past. But, from destruction, new forms of language and relation emerge. We adapt and survive in our environment like the earthworm that burrows and regenerates.

voiceover:

"is it the path things take that lead us to the right path? what is the right path? do you twist and turn to get there, submerged in dirt you find yourself, is that me? is that meeeeee? is that meeeeee? all paths lead to one origin, the roots so deep, are they even grounded? follow them, slide down, uprooted you emerge and submerge, dive down, deeper, deeper, the path things take is rooted in black space, no end and no beginning, we twist, twist, twist, t-twist, twist, twist, twist, roots go deeper, is it up or down or sideways, twist, twist, twist, lost and twisted we burrow, will you ground yourself at your origin, will you find your origin as you twist, a bastard child of society and environment, roots unknown to humankind, deeper we go, twist, twist, twist, burrow, you are uprooted...but are your roots at my origin, your origin at my roots, connected, are you my origin?

what is the meaning of this? is that me? what is the meaning of logistics? it’s where our paths cross...the path things take...the detailed coordination of a complex operation, we twist and expand and contract and submerge and emerge, we burrow, up, down, sideways, we twist, our segments make our whole again: phylum Annelida, a tube-within-a-tube, bodies contract and expand, submerge and emerge, we twist, a tube-within-a-tube. respire through your skin, muscles edging each segment, an organism of both kinds we twist, connected and disconnected in segments we spiral, we burrow deeper to our origin. compartmentalize your body, extend and burrow to my origin, your roots are uprooted as they twist into mine, is that meeeeeeeeee? you touch, my response is “pressure”, contract on your toxic skin. cut me off and you regenerate to twist again. you take the right path, the path things take. burrow deeper, survive, regenerate. bait me with your nature, bite me with your words, i’ll take the path things take to their origin, you’ll burrow deeper, survive, regenerate whole again. look at me duality I am your reality, is that me?"