Object Analysis— Distorted Fragments: William Kentridge’s ‘What Will Come (Has Already Come)’ as a Critique of the Impacts of Film in Global Industrialization
Smith College: ARH 110-02: Art and Its Histories — Professor Cat Dawson — Dec. 16th, 2024
What Will Come (Has Already Come) (2007) is a multimedia installation created by the South African artist William Kentridge in response to the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The piece depicts Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia through a dynamic charcoal animation. Through his use of distorted film, Kentridge enters a unique dialogue with historical genocides and the industrial machines utilized by fascists to make such events possible. The pertinence of industry in Mussolini’s fascist regime is ultimately vital in interpreting What Will Come, as it manifests itself in the film's depictions and the work’s inherent design. Film itself exists due to industrial innovations, which further complicates the piece as it critiques technological industry and machinery on-screen but simultaneously relies on it to exist in the first place. What Will Come's references to its implicated state in propagandistic film and industry are critiqued by the distortive and projective effects of the work. Thus, What Will Come utilizes the fragmentary and distorted nature of animation and charcoal to consider a continuous cycle of racial violence and exploitation via industrialization in tandem with a critique of audience complacency.
In What Will Come, Kentridge projects charcoal animation onto a cylindrical mirror on a circular table. The mirror reflects the film onto the table below but distorts it, transforming the already unnerving images into barely recognizable forms. Vitally, the mirror’s surface area is small, encouraging the viewer to engage with the larger and arguably more distorted projections that spin around the table below. This subtle directive is also partially a result of angled projection, which creates an effect akin to anamorphism, as the viewer cannot watch the film projected onto the mirror from any angle other than above it. In What Will Come, anamorphism necessitates an acknowledgment of the film on the cylinder and the warped projections on the table below. Additionally, the film rotates around the mirror and projects onto the table below, similarly to a carousel of film. Moving in time with the notably nationalistic soundtrack “Faccetta Nera,” created by Renato Micheli and Mario Ruccione, the film undulates and bounces, creating an upbeat and nostalgic tone that contradicts the violent animations.
A paramount factor in Mussolini’s genocide in Ethiopia was the rising industrialization and mechanization at the time, impacting not only the immediate subject matter in Kentridge’s work but also the larger contexts surrounding innovation that he seeks to critique. Mussolini executed developments in industrialism through pure military force in much of East Africa. Developments in war technology, including the introduction of widespread bombing, poisoning, and killing, were particularly severe in Ethiopia, where Mussolini developed, altered, and tested many military weapons. The rising industrial obsession in Italy after the fallout of World War I heavily motivated Mussolini’s invasion as it ensured adequate support behind the regime, serving as a transitional moment in the public’s opinion towards technology and war machinery. While this pivot allowed for many crucial innovations it also caused exploitation in Ethiopia as positivist feelings towards industrial progress attached themselves to fascist ideas. Kentridge heavily engages with these issues in What Will Come, particularly through his use of film, a direct product of industry. Thus, to truly engage in the rich nuance of What Will Come, it is paramount to understand the historical context of Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia.
Kentridge showcases several literal manifestations of exploding war technologies within the animation itself, specifically through the depiction of air strikes and contrasting elements to highlight the severity of the invasion. The animation itself opens with a single fly buzzing around the canvas. However, as the film progresses, the fly morphs into several different flying machines, which drop bombs or decimate the Ethiopian landscape he depicts. The fly’s transformation reads either as a corruption by fascist powers or a method to contrast Italy’s military might with Ethiopia’s. Flies in Ethiopia carry terrible disease and are, similarly to Mussolini’s war machinery, capable of killing thousands. A fly also makes buzzing sounds akin to a warplane, drawing parallels between the ominous meanings of a fly and a warplane. Kentridge’s choice to parallel the plane and fly ultimately serves to create a contextual link for Black Ethiopians, who likely had never seen warplanes before and therefore had no reason to fear them [1]. The parallel also points to how vastly overpowered Black Ethiopians were as flies are much easier to manage than war machinery. Mussolini was largely successful in his occupation due to Italy’s disproportionate power, effectively exploiting Ethiopia’s lack of resources to further his agenda around the possibilities of industrial progress. Thus, What Will Come points to several tangible emotional implications of exploding industrial fixations through literal depictions of brutality and contrasting metaphorical devices such as the fly.
Yet Kentridge’s work does not solely deal with the violent implications of industrialization in a literal sense. It also sits within the tension of its existence as a technological process. Film and photography emerged directly out of rising industrialization and quickly became tools, not only in furthering industrial adoration but often in promoting propagandistic and nationalistic ideals similarly found in Mussolini’s regime [2]. Susan Sontag particularly argues this in “In Plato’s Cave,” where she cites photography as a fragmented and inherently intrusive act [3]. Film cannot exist in a space of singular truth as it is always a curation. Instead, film is a truth, often told with an ulterior agenda. In the case of Mussolini, film existed as a direct extension of the colonial machine as a means to glorify genocide and improve Italy’s public image [4]. Understanding the power of film, Mussolini quickly harnessed it to curate a narrative of the violence occurring throughout much of Africa at the time. What Will Come feels self-aware as it actively plays into these facets of film and media. The soundtrack that backs the latter half of the animation, once Italy’s invasion commences, strengthens a propagandistic tone reminiscent of the films used by fascist Italy to encourage support of the invasion. This tone is particularly notable, even growing in intensity, when the film backs Kentridge’s violent depictions of air strikes and military machinery. Thus, What Will Come exists within the tensions of creating a film depicting the violent implications of industrialization through technologies developed by the same movement.
What Will Come could be misperceived as a contemporary depiction of propaganda, but several other aspects of the work speak to the depth of Kentridge’s thought. Most obviously, there is the issue of distortion. The ostensibly accurate film, a propagandistic curation of truth, is small and only appears directly on the cylindrical mirror. It is not easy for the viewer to see this animation; instead, the eye is drawn to the larger, malformed images projected onto the table below. Projecting the theoretically less true images onto the table is counterintuitive, and this simple fact encourages the viewer to consider what truth is on a more fundamental level. The question then becomes, if the non-distorted image is more accurate than its projected counterpart, why is it so difficult to view? This subversion ultimately destabilizes the previously established idea that the film on the mirror is the truest and the projection is a warped image, causing the viewer to conflate the separate media. Thus, Kentridge critiques the common association of truth with film, particularly regarding propagandistic film surrounding racial injustice.
Ultimately, What Will Come subverts the propagandistic film archetype to open discourse surrounding the viewer’s role in injustice. While one comprehends that what one sees on screen is not a well-rounded depiction of reality, a sense of undeniable truth permeates film [5]. What Will Come pushes the audience to wrestle with this contradiction by remaining intrinsically connected to technological developments while pointing to the misrepresentation and brutality that resulted, and continues to occur, because of industrialization. If one looks beyond the initial nationalist tones of the piece, one finds multiple instances of Kentridge’s intentional use of erasure, fragmentation, and distortion through the multiplicity of projected visual medias and their respective warping and anamorphic nature points to these elements within the work. These techniques are paramount in communicating that what is first seen may not be an entirely accurate truth. This dynamic also draws parallels between the audience’s complacency in viewing the piece and international passivity when these instances of cruelty or genocide occur. Thus, What Will Come is a critique of this process, highlighting how institutionalized industrialism results in racial exploitation or violence, primarily by utilizing film to distort the truth and as an anesthetic for the masses.
Footnotes
[1] Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “The Imperial Moment in Facist Cinema,” Journal of Modern European History 13, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 60.
[2] Gianmarco Mancosu, “Watching Films in Italian East Africa (1936-41). Fascist Ambitions, Contradictions, and Anxieties,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 26, no. 3 (May 5, 2021): 264.
[3] Susan Sontag, “‘In Plato’s Cave,’” in On Photography, 1973, 7.
[4] Mancosu, “Watching Films in Italian East Africa (1936-41). Fascist Ambitions, Contradictions, and Anxieties,” 264.
[5] Sontag, “‘In Plato’s Cave,’” 6.
