Our Programs
The Broader Picture
KAOS Network is an artistic cultural oasis in LPV curating positive shared experiences in BlackDesign (Afrofuturism), music, and technology. A significant principle in developing the network is to empower artists and filmmakers of the community with the knowledge and understanding of the 21st century’s “cyber” technology. KAOS offers participation in hands-on courses in video production and website development, giving local artists a safe community media lab to develop artistically and to work, create and share their ideas and talents. Advantages include a local facility and resources, serving as a corollary for Leimert Park.
KAOS Network (KN) expands a philosophy of life and a creative system of expression in a growing area of art and technology. It is an active artistic practice of imagination and collaboration. KN is the brainchild of Ben Caldwell, a New Mexico-born, Los Angeles based, filmmaker, multimedia artist, technologist, educator, community leader, and business owner. He is also a mentor and offers the space in LPV to encourage and highlight local art designers, film makers, musicians, actors and activists using technology and multimedia as an accelerator. The founder of KAOS Network, a community-based performance site, and meeting space located in the heart of Leimert Park.
For over 30 years, Ben Caldwell has been an asset and engineer in a wide diasporic and transnational urban avant-garde creativity. Through multimedia storytelling, ethnography, and experimentalist approaches to urban design, interface and place keeping – developing iterations and waves of KAOS mentoring have flowed and spread. In the process, KN has inspired and offered continued opportunities.
UMBRELLA OF LEADERSHIP
Annenberg Professor Francois Bar, the Annenberg Innovation Lab and an entire community of artists, musicians and creators in Leimert Park have been working together to find ways to preserve the history and culture of Leimert Park Village, as well as promote civic engagement. Leimert Phone Company, a joint collaboration between USC Annenberg and KAOS Network, has done so by repurposing old payphones.
Karl Baumann explained that the symbolic Sankofa bird on the logo “flies to the future while constantly looking back towards the past.” Baumann, who helped found the project, said it embodies the “conceptual framework” for Leimert Phone Company. Kaos Network owner and Leimert Park community member Ben Caldwell said that he sees Kaos Network as a “community leader and liaison” with USC Annenberg in their “co-teaching relationship.”
“We are not simply bringing USC to the community, but providing means by which the community can communicate and collaborate,” said Andrew Schrock. “In this way, Leimert Phone Company serves as a facilitator to amplify the voice of Leimert Park as a whole.” The collaboration continued with a spring 2013 test course at USC. Students and Leimert Park community members pitched prototypes through “concept videos.” Ideas included using the keypad to play local music, audio stories about the neighborhood and information about local art.
At the end of 2013, the project unveiled its first physical prototype: Sankofa Red, a payphone that has been completely rewired on the inside and redecorated on the outside. Combining aspects of the earlier prototype ideas, it has a screen on the front, a speaker on the top, a microphone on one side and numerous outlets on the other side. Users can plug in Mp3 devices, do karaoke or pick up the phone to hear and record stories, as well as listen to the music of Leimert Park. “It’s kind of a whole art performance piece,” said Bar. The Sankofa Red operates through the “Raspberry Pi” — a circuit board created by Schrock specifically for the project. It connects to the keyboard of the phone and detects any action by the user. Sankofa Red resides in the Kaos Network space until sturdier versions of the prototype can be built, sponsored by local businesses and left on the street, but the prototype is brought out for community events, such as the monthly Artwalk.
The Leimert Phone Company team also used their experimentation with payphones as the basis for an urban game called Sankofa Says. It was selected and presented at Indiecade — an annual festival for independent game designers. “Think of it as a treasure hunt which helps people meet each other and discover the place they’re in,” Bar said. Players registered for the game over the phone and were given a personalized code. They would then visit various places throughout where payphones resided. At each place, players would pick up the payphone, enter their code and receive clues for a nearby activity. After completing the given task, they would use the payphone to answer trivia questions and receive points for correct answers. The game also incorporated group tasks that would require players to connect with one another.
Brockman Gallery
Brockman Gallery’s philosophy is centered around creating opportunities for new and upcoming artisans who have produced films. For years, Black films have had either a positive or negative effect on the Black community. The various films that will be viewed will display the creativity of both professional and novice filmmakers. The Brockman Gallery Film Festival began in 1975 with “An Evening of Contemporary Black Films” at the Scottish Rites Auditorium and set out to create a viable venue for African-American and under represented filmmakers to showcase their work.
The festival increased in size and ambition and began to program international activist cinemas including films from Brazil, Cuba and Senegal. In 1980, UCLA graduate Ben Caldwell programmed a large festival called “Los Angeles: The Ethnic Experience” that offered the first major, local, showcase of filmmakers from UCLA’s Ethno-Communications program including films by Larry Clark, Caldwell, Julie Dash and Barbara McCollough and the founders of Visual Communications.
Electronic Cafe [1989 - 2003]
From 1975 through 1977 Galloway and Rabinowitz developed a series of projects under a heading they called Aesthetic Research in Telecommunications, 1975. Among these projects was the Satellite Arts Project that addressed a multitude of telecollaborative arts and virtual space performance issues that had never been genuinely tested or even experienced. Central to the Satellite Arts Project idea was an aesthetic inquiry that would apply the performing arts as a mode of investigating the possibilities and limitations of various technologies to create new contexts for art, including the emergence of telecollaborative arts on a global scale.
The Satellite Arts “series” marks the first time that the geographically dispersed electronic image was contextualized as a live immersive place, where artists, and others, could convene and co-create together on a scale that could be as culturally inclusive as desired. In 1980, their project Hole In Space would usher in a new era of interactive communication and use of tools by artists which is resonating today with younger practitioners. Ultimately, the formation of the Electronic Cafe Network was about integration: Integrating community, art, technology, multimedia telecommunications, and cross-cultural communications. Artists who were active in the ECI milieu at that time include Ulysses Jenkins, Ben Caldwell, Pattsi Valdez, Hye Sook Park, Kay Torres, and Gerardo De Jesus Valesquez.
C.A.P. [1990-2013]
CAP (Community Arts Partnership). In 1984, he founded KAOS Network, a community arts center dedicated to providing training on digital arts, media arts and multimedia, at the heart of Leimert Park, historic center of the Los Angeles jazz culture, now hosting a diverse multi-ethnic multimedia arts center. KAOS Network was designed to empower the youth of the community and is the only organization of its kind in South Central Los Angeles where inner-city youths can participate in hands-on courses in video production, animation, web-site development, video teleconferencing, CD ROM production, and use of the Internet. KAOS is also the creative leadership behind WORDshop, a weekly workshop for hip-hop artists, dancers, singers and visual artists. Each week over 150 youths participate in workshops and programs at the center. In addition to these workshops, KAOS Network has videotaped community events and produced documentaries for the state of California.
Leimert Park Artwalk
The village is inviting the public on the last Sunday of each month to share a day of art exhibitions, music, fashion, food, drumming, spoken word, and local shopping. In the heart of Leimert Park thrives a group of community business members with a passion to develop an event rooted in the foundations of culture, art, music and community. In the summer of 2010, the neighborhood organization hosted by Ben Caldwell of the KAOS Network birthed the Leimert Park Art Walk through the incubator meeting.
The business incubator group created the Artwalk with one goal in mind… to develop and cultivate a stronger sense of community within the Leimert Park District.
Leimert Park’s Day of the Ancestors: Festival of the Mask (FOM) was launched in 2010 by artists Najite Agindotan, Rene Fisher-Mims (SHINE MAWUSE), and Ben Caldwell in collaboration with LACommons in celebration of the first year of the Artwalk. FOM has become an annual celebration of our ancestors and an invocation for the South Central LA community in the month of June. It is a multicultural, multigenerational, and multimedia arts event that champions the vast identities of the African diaspora.
LACommons (2010 - now)
Housed at Kaos Network, LA Commons engages communities in artistic and cultural expressions that tell their unique stories and serves as a basis for dialogue, interaction and a better understanding of Los Angeles. Through community-based arts programs, centered on youth leadership development, we help diverse, generally low-income neighborhoods create dynamic works of public art that build community connection and empowerment.
Leimert Park Mask Festival
Leimert Park’s Day of the Ancestors: Festival of the Mask (FOM) is an annual celebration of our ancestors and an invocation for the South Central LA community. Founded in 2010 by artists Najite Agindotan, Rene Fisher-Mims, and Ben Caldwell in collaboration with LACommons, FOM is a multicultural, multigenerational, and multimedia arts event that champions the vast identities of the African diaspora.Rated in the top 10 Drum Circles in Los Angeles, CA on YELP!
Project Blowed (1994-now)
An open-mic workshop, its affiliated underground hip hop crew and record label based in 3333 Leimert, KAOS Network. This hip hop function started in 1994 and features many music groups, emcees, dancers, and graffiti artists local to the Southern California area. The roots of Project Blowed can be traced back to the former Good Life Cafe, a health food center in then called South Central Los Angeles, California. It was described by UGSMAG as “a platform for rappers to perform their material” and “a testing ground for Los Angeles’ independent rap scene”. Lenny Kravitz, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and cast members of the show “Beverly Hills 90210” reportedly attended the open-mic.
In 1994, Aceyalone and Abstract Rude produced the original Project Blowed compilation album. It was released in 1995. In 2005, Project Blowed released a follow up album, Project Blowed: 10th Anniversary, on Decon. Early footage of artists like Freestyle Fellowship, Jurassic 5, Figures of Speech and C.V.E.; backyard parties; rappers breaking the cafe’s rule of no swearing on the mic; and fond, funny remembrances by those who were there.
But even a casual viewer of Ava DuVernay’s film This is the Life will give a sense of something bigger: namely, the way great art can grow and cross-pollinate in a tight-knit scene.
The business incubator group created the Artwalk with one goal in mind… to develop and cultivate a stronger sense of community within the Leimert Park District.
BANANAS (2008-now)
Bananas’ monthly music showcase is an ad hoc meeting ground for local rappers, DJs, bands and out-of-town acts. Founded by local rappers/ community activists VerBS and Gumshoe (born Devin Montgomery), the venue has been an unexpected, but vital success. In its first three years, it had grown into a driving force behind advancements in the area’s art and music scene. Happening regularly promotes the community-based workshop where musicians and MCs exchange their chops on stage. Co-headliners included local rapper Catch Lungs, retro funk outfit J.R. Tate and the Good Intentions along with other acts. In many ways, Banana’s talent pool matches the eclectic crowd. It’s ability to include artists from various L.A. music scenes has afforded them an interesting mix of home grown South L.A. talent like Dom Kennedy and U-N-I, as well as the distortion-heavy, experimental rock bands like Professor Calculus.
As more artists and musicians have gravitated toward Leimert, VerBS said the success of Bananas has helped spawn the Leimert Park Artwalk, a self-guided monthly tour that now uses the space at KAOS Network as one of it’s primary locations. Bananas’ has also differentiated itself from other hip-hop monthlies by being a multi-racial event where male and female acts share relatively equal presence on stage
DMetro Transit High Speed Connectivity
KAOS has a global connection to community builders who are educating young leadership and over the next few years, local leadership can utilize and train on accessible superhighway internet throughout the Leimert Park area. Our global and university workshops are in motion to launch the training tools to ensure this community is both competitive and engaged. It is now that accessibility matters most as the world changes to include an active high speed internet life along with the new-normal of how we as citizens interact.
One of several ways to share internet inclusivity is through the KAOS Network Autonomous Vehicle which offers an active dialog based on community events and news. This vehicle distributes local and global content from one to many through a proposed internet connection with METRO. We are also looking toward hotspots along the Crenshaw Transit route that offer the same level of high speed capability that will be area inclusive so that the growth is shared by all of south Los Angeles. This is a shared goal for success that will be celebrated by all who both offer this opportunity and those who receive it.
In 1994, Aceyalone and Abstract Rude produced the original Project Blowed compilation album. It was released in 1995. In 2005, Project Blowed released a follow up album, Project Blowed: 10th Anniversary, on Decon. Early footage of artists like Freestyle Fellowship, Jurassic 5, Figures of Speech and C.V.E.; backyard parties; rappers breaking the cafe’s rule of no swearing on the mic; and fond, funny remembrances by those who were there.
But even a casual viewer of Ava DuVernay’s film This is the Life will give a sense of something bigger: namely, the way great art can grow and cross-pollinate in a tight-knit scene.
The business incubator group created the Artwalk with one goal in mind… to develop and cultivate a stronger sense of community within the Leimert Park District.
Rhythm Drum Alliance
Rhythm Arts Alliance has established itself as the premiere cultural arts organization, integrating the traditional arts of African and Latin culture in order to inspire and rebuild our communities. Through the healing power of drum, dance and song, the organization unites at-risk youth and their elders to reweave the tattered fabric of community. Kahlil Cumming’s (lead teaching artist) father, Rahsan Cummings, still remembers the founding of the weekly drum circle in Leimert Park, which originated as a response to the civil rights riots of the 60s and 70s. In his own words “We just wanted to do something nurturing with all our frustration. It felt like we were drumming in the middle of a burning village.” Some 50 years on, the drum circle has passed from one leader to another. Through Rhythm Arts Alliance programming and their collaboration with Kaos Network, they have been able start a weekly African drum workshop for the community. While helping to provide education around the central role that West African culture played in the development of American culture, the organization seeks to facilitate conversation around the elements of societal connectivity that the traditional West African music and dance can bring to modern day communities undergoing stress.
As more artists and musicians have gravitated toward Leimert, VerBS said the success of Bananas has helped spawn the Leimert Park Artwalk, a self-guided monthly tour that now uses the space at KAOS Network as one of it’s primary locations. Bananas’ has also differentiated itself from other hip-hop monthlies by being a multi-racial event where male and female acts share relatively equal presence on stage
Samba In The Streets
VIVER BRASIL, a Los Angeles based company under the artistic direction of Linda Yudin and Luiz Badaró, captivates audiences with its irrepressible blend of bold Afro-Brazilian dance theater and exuberant physicality, power, and passion drawn from orixa movement and rhythms, samba, forró, dança afro and bloco afro styles. The dancers unveil history, ignite the present, imagine and inflame the future. Vocalists become part of the action and musicians take polyrhythms to new heights. Led by Viver Brasil artists: Kahlil Cummings and Luiz Badaró- drumming; Laila Abdullah, Rachel Hernandez and Linda Yudin, the 12 session workshop will introduce you to the funky rhythms of samba reggae, a staple in roots Carnaval of Bahia, Brazil. This workshop is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs and KAOS Network.
One of several ways to share internet inclusivity is through the KAOS Network Autonomous Vehicle which offers an active dialog based on community events and news. This vehicle distributes local and global content from one to many through a proposed internet connection with METRO. We are also looking toward hotspots along the Crenshaw Transit route that offer the same level of high speed capability that will be area inclusive so that the growth is shared by all of south Los Angeles. This is a shared goal for success that will be celebrated by all who both offer this opportunity and those who receive it.
In 1994, Aceyalone and Abstract Rude produced the original Project Blowed compilation album. It was released in 1995. In 2005, Project Blowed released a follow up album, Project Blowed: 10th Anniversary, on Decon. Early footage of artists like Freestyle Fellowship, Jurassic 5, Figures of Speech and C.V.E.; backyard parties; rappers breaking the cafe’s rule of no swearing on the mic; and fond, funny remembrances by those who were there.
But even a casual viewer of Ava DuVernay’s film This is the Life will give a sense of something bigger: namely, the way great art can grow and cross-pollinate in a tight-knit scene.
The business incubator group created the Artwalk with one goal in mind… to develop and cultivate a stronger sense of community within the Leimert Park District.