KAOS NETWORK
a Leimert Park-based media lab and community incubator
by taylor brock
for RAP USC
Embedded Files
CREATING TO CONVENE, HEAL, AND IMAGINE :
It is near impossible to talk about arts and culture in Leimert Park over the last 30 years without mentioning Ben Caldwell. At least, this was my experience. When the organization I work for was doing a project in Leimert, every single person told us the same thing, "you gotta talk to Ben Caldwell." Ben is a local celebrity - and a father figure.
Ben has spent the last three decades in Leimert Park establishing KAOS Network as a warm and open environment, particularly for youth in the community. He first experienced Leimert Park while interning at Brockman Gallery as a graduate student at UCLA. It was during his time at UCLA that he helped to form the LA Rebellion, a prominent group of young Black artists who were creating independent films as an opposition to the stereotypical and exploitative narratives of Hollywood. Much of his work has been rooted in this; building community, subverting norms, and fostering young artists. Ben offers shooting and editing courses for local youth. He also hosts famed open mic nights and monthly showcases titled Project Blowed and Bananas, which has drawn participants and patrons such as Aceyalone, Ava DuVernay, Kendrick Lamar, and Eazy E. His door is open to any and all who wish to come in, be in community, and create.
The aptly named KAOS network relies on the unexpected. Whether it be the film classes, open mic nights, or community artwork, Ben's work is always process-driven, focusing on unlocking creativity and encouraging participation rather than the material outcome.
In our discussion with Ben, he described KAOS Network as an incubator in which local youth can come to escape the ravages of society. It is a space that counteracts the traditional underpinnings of a capitalist system by focusing on deep listening and creation as necessary tools for the growth and development of youth.
Project Blowed Event at KAOS Network
"The space Ben runs, KAOS Network, has become my home away from home. It's the space I go to to participate in meaningful community exchanges in the arts. I feel like I've become part of the space now, in terms of helping to facilitate and work on an archiving initiative".
- Robeson Taj Frazier
RAP faculty
USC Professor Communication
CELEBRATING BLACK ARTS & CULTURE IN LEIMERT PARK:
CELEBRATING BLACK ARTS & CULTURE IN LEIMERT PARK:
Adinka symbols on People's Street Plaza in front of Kaos Network's offices.
It is no accident that Kaos Network is in Leimert Park. Originally planned as a development with neat rows of houses with front lawns, after white flight Leimert Park became a middle-class, black neighborhood known as the epicenter of the black arts scene in Los Angeles. Filmmaker and former Leimert Park resident John Singleton called it the “Black Greenwich Village.” Leimert is a truly Afrocentric neighborhood, known for its hip-hop scene, poetry jam nights, shops like Esowon bookstore, art exhibited inside and outside of walls, and Afro-Caribbean cuisine. In fact, RAP USC professor of communication, Taj Frazier, grew up on the east coast hearing about the renowned Caldwell and Project Blowed and sought him out when moved to LA. As Ben explains, black folk come from near and far away counties to just be in Leimert because they feel welcome to be where people can hang out in public space, strike up a casual conversation, play their trumpet, dance...
KAOS’s office sits directly in the center of Leimert Park on “People’s Street Plaza,” (which, of course, Ben helped to create). Before you enter the office, you step onto a plaza filled with polka dots that contain Adinkra symbols, which are symbols representative of the Akan ethnic group in Ghana, and provide offerings such as “Unity” and “Human Relations.” The office itself is equal parts editing studio, art gallery, and event space. It is perfectly cluttered in the way that a truly creative space must be, filled with projects of the past, present, and future.
"As a dance maker, a lot of people they go choreograph in the studio. I can do that in Leimert Park. Going back to the wellspring,"
-d. Sabela grimes
RAP faculty
USC Kaufman School of Dance Professor
PARTNERING WITH RAP:
PARTNERING WITH RAP:
Ben is a prolific collaborator and has helped RAP find a different way for universities and community-based arts organizations to work together as outlined in RAP’s statement of values. I feature two projects that he did with RAP’s Francois Bar, a USC Professor of Communication, to show what this alternative model of collaboration can do.
"Usually nonprofits and institutions try to do 100-yard dashes, but this work is really a marathon."
-Ben Caldwell
Ben Caldwell's collaboration with Francois Bar's USC Cinematic Studies team
LEIMERT PHONE COMPANY
LEIMERT PHONE COMPANY
The core of Leimert Phone Company was sparked by two key questions:
“(1) How can we better utilize an abandoned payphone outside of our partner’s building in Leimert Park?
(2) With ongoing subway development and fears of gentrification, how can public arts and technology reinforce the cultural identity of that neighborhood and help plan for the future?”
The Leimert Phone Company uses participatory design to repurpose payphones so they serve as portals to local culture and history. The team members hacked into 14 pay-phones that they had purchased off of eBay and re-coded the keypad numbers to perform various tasks. The core team of hardware hackers, game designers, Leimert Park community members, and USC faculty and students collaborated to decide what the various capabilities would be. For example, the group’s first prototype SANKOFA RED (seen above) offers stories from neighborhood residents if you click 1, neighborhood history if you click 2, and more about the project itself when you hit 4. Each phone also encourages passersby to call a given number and answer the question “When did you first become aware of the color of your skin?” Every payphone includes a portal to these SKIN stories. Additionally, each payphone included outlets to charge phones, serving a practical need within the community.
SANKOFA CITY
SANKOFA CITY
As a part of the ongoing collaboration, Ben worked with Francois and then USC doctoral student Karl Baumann to produce the film Sankofa City. The video was based on three months of community workshops and prototyping. Throughout the workshops, Leimert Park residents and USC students, "linked emerging / speculative technology to cultural history and socio-economic practices of the neighborhood."
The award-winning video provides an Afro-futurist lens of how to be in the city. The protagonist arrives in a futuristic Leimert Park and immediately finds a sense of belonging in a community thriving on local and cultural history, communal sharing, and ancestral intelligence. Sankofa City offers an alternative speculative future of Leimert Park, one in which technology, history, music, and intergenerational relationships all merge together to craft a strong sense of place, space, and belonging. This is all within the context of rising housing prices and increased development in Leimert Park due to the construction of a new subway line there. Sankofa City is not about reacting to fears of gentrification, but rather retooling public space to be a holder and a communicator of individual, collective, and cultural stories. The title takes its name from the Ghanaian term Sankofa, which translates to go back and get it, is at the core of KAOS’s work, excavating both known and unknown stories and histories to build more intentional and inclusive futures.
REMOLDING KNOWLEDGE AND CITIES:
REMOLDING KNOWLEDGE AND CITIES:
One particularly striking aspect of this collaboration to me is how it spans specializations within the University. In most universities, disciplines are often so incredibly siloed, forcing students to very specifically choose which field they will devote a majority of their time and energy to. This separation of disciplines has always been a frustrating component of academia for me. So much so that in undergrad I made up my own major, combining a variety of disciplines because just one did not encompass my academic goals. Currently, in graduate school, I am pursuing a dual degree in a Masters of Arts in Curatorial Practice as well as a Masters of Urban Planning. What was presented as a conjoined program could not be more separate, as both schools and studies have their own agendas, which seemingly do not overlap with one another. I think that is why I am so incredibly amazed by the way that Ben has, oftentimes simultaneously, collaborated with students and professors across disciplines. Not only is he connecting these myriad disciplines, such as Physics, Cinematic Arts, Communication, and Urban Planning, to one another, but also bringing community members into the action. He is building bridges that counteract traditional frameworks of academia that glorify expertise and individualism almost always at the expense of interdisciplinary learning and collaboration. Partnerships such as the one with KAOS Networks offer students and professors a chance to paradigm shift, focusing on how we work together, rather than alone.
According to Ben, one of the many benefits this brings specifically within a university setting is realness or groundtruthing. RAP’s partnership with KAOS Network creates a pathway for the institutions to collaborate with the surrounding community in meaningful ways. Ben does not allow for a short-lived partnership but focuses on longevity. He requires that the University takes time to get to know and participate within the community. The collaborations become a petri-dish of sorts, ever-changing to see what works. There are no strict parameters, restrictive evaluations, concrete guidelines, or clear end product. The RAP Partnership with KAOS Network has been one that is malleable, ever-evolving, and process-driven. Community experience and cultural knowledge are given as much weight as traditionally recognized expertise, and intergenerational and interdisciplinary collaboration are at the root of (and provide the route for) how the work is done. KAOS Network provides a space to envision the city as an interactive, experimental instrument by which we can rethink, remold, and redefine our temporal, spatial, and cultural relations to ourselves, our communities, and our world.
taylor brock is pursuing a dual Master of Urban Planning / Master of Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere at USC. Much of taylor's work focuses on the power of arts and culture to question, reframe, and subvert in order to build a more just, inclusive, love-filled world. Outside of the classroom, she serves as a Creative Producer for the artist collective For Freedoms.
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