Catalogue > At random

African Union responds to 2018 reports of Chinese surveillance at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa. Made with generative AI, commercial stock imagery, and documentary footage, the film explores digital imperialism, data extraction, and the ideological entanglements of AI within the evolving dynamics of China–Africa political and technological relations.

David Kelley’s work traces the hidden ecologies of global infrastructure—from deep-sea mining and the Silk Road to Alberta’s oil sands and the extraction of rare earth elements in China. Working across film, photography, installation, and sculpture, he explores how technology, modernity, ecology, and memory operate as interwoven systems of mediation. His practice draws on essay film, experimental ethnography, and experimental theater, using form as a site for affective experience, ambiguity, and transgression. Kelley approaches research as an aesthetic process, privileging sensorial and speculative modes over purely discursive ones. His projects often involve site-specific production, archival research, and the integration of everyday objects and theatrical constructions within immersive environments. Scientific specimens—borrowed from natural history collections or reimagined in glass, ceramic, and stone—anchor his installations in material history while opening space for surreal and speculative encounters. His work has been exhibited internationally at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin; and The Bank, Shanghai. Upcoming presentations include LACMA in Los Angeles and the Global Visions FotoFest Biennial 2026 in Houston. Kelley holds an MFA from UC Irvine and was a 2010–11 Whitney Independent Study Program fellow.