»From 1986 to 1994, Gen Atem collaborated with the New York artist Rammellzee, who interlaced graffiti with elements of Afrofuturism in his work, which he called Ikonoklast Panzerism – Gothic Futurism. Together with Rammellzee, Gen Atem realized various performances and exhibitions in New York City and Amsterdam between 1986 and 1994. Gen Atem and Rammellzee organized and executed so-called “art battle performances“, like the one at Eigen+Art Gallery in New York City in 1994, titled “Exercises in Self Presentation“. For these art battles, each artist created 26 sculptures, each of which represented one of the letters of the alphabet. A chassis with wheels was an integral part of each sculpture, and the two artists had their letters compete with each other in combinations of so-called “letter formation functions” on a system of self-made tracks. Simultaneously, Gen Atem and Rammellzee played self-composed music and attacked each other with rhymes. Inspired by Afrofuturism, Gen Atem used language, his mobile letter sculptures, and his vocal music performances as a strategy and technology to transcend the digital divide. He created and performed in costumes similar to those worn by Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic.« from Wikipedia
