O.T.O (One Time Only) was a club night that took place at FOLD in London, in partnership with the moving image gallery LUX, on the 11th of May 2023 from 7pm to 1am. It presented new and existing work by leading contemporary artists and DJs responding to their relationship with music videos. Using music, performance and video, the artists and contributors to O.T.O brought out the ways in which music videos have impacted them, art and society.
In our research we found that music videos hadn’t been given a clear space in our culture, sitting between the worlds of film, art and music so we envisaged a night that sits between a screening, an exhibition and a night out. This was an opportunity to consider our relationship to the music video format in a more embodied way. We understood how universal the experience of watching music videos is, the individual belonging within a wider fan culture, and their ability to serve as a historical memory. With O.T.O, we invited the public to watch, dance and listen to music videos together on the dancefloor.
The first set included the live VJ and DJ works of London-based artists Anna Clegg and Tarzan KingOfTheJungle, the second set presented a video work by artist Ahaad Alamoudi accompanied by the DJ HabibTati and featuring a gorilla performance, the final set presented artist Adam Farah-Saad existing moving image work initiating a conversation with the DJ Hellikisito’s set. As transitions between the sets, we screened David Hall’s ‘TV Interruptions 93’ commissioned by MTV Networks, these intended to disrupt the night and highlight music videos’ mediums of distribution.
In preparation of the night, Hugo Hutchins and Maria Mahfooz created site-specific digital commissions for social media, which were made available on the LUX Instagram account.
An accompanying digital publication, featuring texts by the curators and a foreword by Lewis G. Burton was available on the O.T.O website. Topics include responses to the music videos of Gwen Stefani, how K-pop fan culture has challenged gender norms in China and interviews with practitioners using the party as an art form. My contribution was an interview with the collective 16am.
Read more about O.T.O here.
