BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
6.8100%
Preeminent West African curator and scholar Funmilayo Akechukwu’s magnum opus, The Resonance Field, leads her to the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, drawing a journalist into a journey that shatters her understanding of consciousness and time.
Kevin Ward reviewedJune 30, 2025
BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions isn’t a traditional film—it’s a transmission. Adapted from Kahlil Joseph’s museum-exhibited video installation, this feature-length version unfolds like a concept album, blending 21 “tracks” of cinema, video art, music video, social media, and documentary into an experimental sonic collage. Spanning 247 years, it plays less like narrative and more like an audiovisual séance.
It samples everything—W.E.B. Du Bois, TikTok rants, Vine clips, propaganda reels—and never stops to hold your hand. Dazzling, overwhelming, and occasionally obtuse, it isn’t meant to be easily digested—it asks to be felt, interpreted, questioned.
It lost me at times, and that’s okay. This isn’t a conventional doc with talking heads and arcs—it’s a living document of Black thought that remixes history and media into something defiant and new. BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions won’t be for everyone, but there’s value in engaging with the echoes and impressions it leaves behind.