Moko Fukuyama in collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie, American Recordings, Act II: American Frequency, 2021
HD, color, sound, 49:03 minutes

In the second film of her American Recordings series, Fukuyama situates her inquiries into national and interpersonal dialogue in Memphis, Tennessee, a city where she has enduring personal ties. Distinct from the composite portrait Fukuyama creates of Iowa in Act I: American Harvest, Act II: American Frequency portrays its location through the lived experience of one long-time resident, Keland Nance. With this shift in scale—from a collective to an individual subject—the artist similarly adjusts her own role. Rather than surveying the space between the perspectives of many different people, Fukuyama focuses on her personal connection to Nance, with whom she has been in conversation since 2014.

The film is centered around a series of exchanges between the pair, which the artist has been recording since a chance encounter with Nance on his property in South Memphis seven years ago. During a residency hosted by The Kitchen at Queenslab in February 2021, Fukuyama expanded on her dialogues with Nance by inviting DJ and turntablist Yo! Vinyl Richie to take part in a performance involving three video channels that established a feedback loop between all three parties. Scenes from this live event appear throughout the film, showing Yo Vinyl! Richie composing a soundscape in response to interview footage of Nance while Fukuyama films the DJ in real-time. Merging the three video feeds into one, the resulting film Act II: American Frequency presents Nance, Fukuyama, and Yo! Vinyl Richie communicating with one another fluidly across the shifting positions of subject and narrator, speaker and respondent, creator and viewer.

To frame the film, Fukuyama reflects on the ethics of storytelling within a city that is both laden with historical associations and subject to romanticization. Recognizing how such representations shaped her own initial, idealized impressions of Memphis, the artist endeavors to separate the narrative she conveys in Act II: American Frequency from the familiar pattern of superficial accounts. The interplay that Fukuyama sets up between herself, Nance, and Yo! Vinyl Richie allows for each contributor to add their own unique dimension to the film via their respective forms of dialogue, sound, or moving image. Through this medium, identity, and location-spanning collaboration, Fukuyama underscores the invisible qualities—the frequencies—that affect the ways individuals connect with one another and with their surroundings.

To learn more about the series American Recordings to view Act I: American Harvest, click here.

Production Credits

Filmed & Edited by Moko Fukuyama

Music Composed & Performed by Yo! Vinyl Richie

Produced by The Kitchen

Curated by Alison Burstein

Second Camera Operator: Aaron Suggs

Script Written by Michael Mount and Moko Fukuyama

Script Editors: Aaron Suggs, Lesley Ann Ferguson, and Alison Burstein 

Production Manager: Zack Tinkelman 

Production Coordinator: Mariana Catalina

Lighting Design: Mike Faba

Stylist: Wieteke Heldens 

Sound Engineer: Andrya Ambro

Sound Editor: Anthony Fraser