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ABSTRACTThis article examines the use of what I term ‘schizophrenic aesthetics’ in memory construction and the search for justice, peace, and reconciliation in contemporary music videos about the LRA war. I seek to establish how the deep memory of trauma is packaged in videos that have disturbing content due to the use of B-roll and stock footage of war, yet they are also highly entertaining through their use of music, dramatic performances, and erotic young female dancers often referred to as ‘queen dancers’. ‘Schizophrenic aesthetics’ is used in this article in reference to both the trauma represented and the syncretised and disjunctured form of the music video in a postmodernist context. The heterogeneous clash between the oral and written words on the one hand, with the images on the other, is examined as traumatic subject matter is interrogated in the context of brisk entertainment. These song videos are produced by a younger post-war generation of artists who problematise postcolonial African trauma... |
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