Afrofuturism

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Afrofuturism is a literary and cultural aesthetic that combines elements from science fiction , historical novels , fantasy , afrocentricity and magical realism with non-western cosmologies in order to criticize not only today's dilemmas of people of color , but also historical events from the past edit, question and re-examine. The term was first coined by Mark Dery in 1993 and further explored through conversation led by Alondra Nelson in the late 1990s . Afrofuturism addresses issues and concerns of the African diaspora through a technocultural and science fiction perspective and encompasses a range of media and artists who share an interest in the visualization of dark futures derived from African diasporic experiences. Influential Afro-futuristic works include the novels by Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler ; the paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and the photographs by Renée Cox ; and clearly alien myths of Parliament - Funkadelic , the Jonzun Crew , Warp 9 and Sun Ra .

history

Afrofuturism can be seen in the artistic, scientific and spiritual activities of the African diaspora . Examples are the Dark Matter anthologies, which bring out contemporary Black Sci-Fi, but also older works by WEB Du Bois , Charles W. Chesnutt and George S. Schuyler . Since the term was introduced in 1994, self-labeled Afro-futuristic practice has become increasingly ubiquitous.

Development in the mid to late 20th century

The Afro-Futuristic approach to music was first brought forward by the late Sun Ra . Born in Alabama, Sun Ra's music merged in Chicago in the mid-1950s when he and his Arkestra made music that consisted of hard bop and modal sources, but created a new synthesis that also used Afrocentric and space-related titles to create Ra's connection to ancient times African culture, especially that of Egypt , and the pioneering role of the Space Age . Ras Film Space Is the Place shows the Arkestra in Oakland in the mid-1970s in full space presentation, with lots of science fiction symbols as well as funny and musical material.

Afrofuturist ideas were introduced in 1975 by George Clinton and his bands Parliament and Funkadelic with his masterpiece Mothership Connection and the subsequent The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein , P Funk Earth Tour , Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome and Motor Booty Affair . In the thematic foundation of P-Funk mythology ("pure cloned funk"), Clinton spoke as his alter ego Starchild of "certified Afronauts, capable of funkitizing galaxies."

William Gibson's Neuromancer describes Zion, a Rastafarian space station populated by displaced people from around the world and home of Maelcum, a dub lover and one of the main characters in the novel.

Other musicians who typically work in the Afro-Futurist tradition or have been heavily influenced by it are reggae producers Lee “Scratch” Perry and Scientist , hip-hop artists Afrika Bambaataa and Tricky , electronic musicians such as Larry Heard , A Guy Called Gerald , Juan Atkins , Jeff Mills or Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, the electro hip-hop producers and authors of Warp 9s Light Years Away , a science fiction story about a prehistoric alien visit, which is considered a "cornerstone of early 80's beatbox afrofuturism" was rated.

Cultural Criticism in the 1990s

In the early 1990s, various cultural critics , most notably Mark Dery in his 1994 essay "Black to the Future," began writing about the characteristics they saw in common African American science fiction, music, and art. Dery called this phenomenon 'Afrofuturism'. According to art critic Kodwo Eshun , British journalist Mark Sinker theorized a form of Afrofuturism in The Wire, a British music magazine, back in 1992.

Afrofuturist ideas have been further developed by academics such as Alondra Nelson , Greg Tate, Tricia Rose and Kodwo Eshun , among others . Alondra Nelson explained Afrofuturism as a consideration of the low social position of People of Color , in the context of which topics such as alienation, the experience of “otherness” and “foreignness” and the expectations of a possible utopian future are dealt with. Nelson also notes that the portrayal of PoC in the media often takes on the problem of the digital divide uncritically and thus strengthens the association between ethnicity, economic inequality and limited access to technology. This association has the effect that “being black” is always perceived as contrary to the “technology-driven chronicle of progress” of the western world. Afrofuturism also criticizes the expectation that new forms of communication via the Internet could lead to a world of “faceless individuals” and thus indirectly end the stigmatization of PoC. Instead, a person's identity must be viewed separately from their origin and ethnicity.

21st century

Janelle Monáe specifically tried to bring Afrofuturism back to the fore of contemporary urban music. Her most significant works to date included the music videos "Prime Time" and "Many Moons," which treat a world of cyborgs and the fashion industry as a metaphor for slavery and freedom. Her influences included Metropolis , Blade Runner and Star Wars . Other artists who emerged since the new millennium and were labeled as afrofuturistic included dBridge , SBTRKT , Shabazz Palaces , Heavyweight Dub Champion and Drexciya (with Gerald Donald ).

Chicago was home to a vibrant community of Afrofuturist artists. Nick Cave , best known for his Soundsuits project, helped develop young talent as the director of fashion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago . Other artists include the visual artist Hebru Brantley or the contemporary artist Rashid Johnson , who came from Chicago and later lived in New York . In 2013, Chicago-based Ytasha Womack wrote the study “Afrofuturism: The World of Black Science Fiction and Fantasy,” and William Hayashi (who is not an African American himself ) published two volumes of his “Darkside Trilogy,” in which America finds out that African-Americans were long ago when Neil Armstrong landed secretly on the far side of the moon. This is an extreme view of segregation brought about by technologically advanced people of color . Krista Franklin , a member of the University of Chicago's Arts Incubator, explored the connection between Afrofuturism and the grotesque in her written and pictorial works of weaving and gathered hair in the 2010s. Together with Perpetual Rebel, another Afrofuturist, she created an audio narrative called The Two Thousand and Thirteen Narrative (s) of Naima Brown , which explored thoughts about identity and transformation in the context of hair and Afro-American culture.

subjects

feminism

Jared Richardson's Attack of the Boogeywoman: Visualizing Black Women's Grotesquerie in Afrofuturism analyzes how aesthetics functions as a space for women of color to address intersecting topics such as race, gender and sexuality. Contemporary Afrofuturists such as the artists Wangechi Mutu and Shoshanna Weinberger trace the representation and treatment of bodies of dark-skinned women back to their constituent parts and amplify them to strange and cruel dimensions.

Beyoncé's short film Lemonade from 2016 included feminist Afrofuturism in its concept. The film features Ibeyi , Laolu Senbanjo , Amandla Stenberg , Quvenzhané Wallis , YouTube singing stars Chloe x Halle , Zendaya , Sports Illustrated Sports Person of the Year 2015 Serena Williams and the complex womanist poetry of Somali-British writer Warsan Shire . The central theme is the empowerment of African American women in relation to marital relationships and the historical trauma from the enslavement of African Americans from 1619-1865 to Reconstruction and Jim Crow (1870-1965). The mothers of Trayvon Martin (Sybrina Fulton), Michael Brown (Lesley McFadden), Eric Garner (Gwen Carr) are shown displaying pictures of their deceased sons in remembrance of the importance of their lives.

The grotesque

In the Afro-Surrealist Manifesto, Afro- Surrealism is contrasted with European Surrealism, whereby European Surrealism is empirical. It is compatible with the New Black Aesthetic in that the aim is to disrupt. It samples old works of art and updates them with images from today. This technique primarily takes these past images and the feelings, memories and thoughts around them and combines them with new images in a way that the current generation can still recognize. Both New Black Aesthetic and Afrosurrealism aim at disruption, but it's more about a kind of "mutant psychology". Afrofuturist artists try to propose a deviant beauty, a beauty in which disembodiment is both inhuman but also unambiguous; Afro-futurist artists speculate about the future, while Afro-surrealism deals with the present.

alienation

Afrofuturism takes representations of lived reality by people of color of the past and present and reviews the narratives to build new truths outside of the dominant cultural history. By analyzing the occurrence of alienation, Afrofuturism works to connect the African diaspora with their history and the knowledge of the racialized bodies. Space and aliens act as key products of the science fiction elements; dark-skinned bodies are introduced as the first aliens due to the Middle Passage . Your alien status means being in a strange land with no history as well as being separate from the past. This happened through the tradition of slavery in which slaves were forced by their slave masters to renounce their ties to Africa.

Kodwo Eshun first discovered alienation in the context of the Middle Passage . He wrote that Afro-futuristic texts reinvent slavery and alienation by using "extraterrestrialism as an exaggerated trope for dealing with historical terms, the everyday implications of forcibly imposed dislocation, and the constitution of Black Atlantic subjectivities." Science fiction and novels, which revolve around dystopian societies, place this position of dystopian futures and present realities directly in the tradition of black realities.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Howard Rambsy II: A Notebook on Afrofuturism . In: Cultural Front . April 14, 2012. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  2. ↑ a b Lisa Yaszek: Afrofuturism, science fiction, and the history of the future . In: Socialism and Democracy . 20, No. 3, November 2006, pp. 41-60. doi : 10.1080 / 08854300600950236 . NB: Open Access version also available
  3. ^ Calls for Papers: Afro-Futurism . In: Callaloo . 26, No. 3, 2003, ISSN  1080-6512 , pp. 932-934. doi : 10.1353 / cal.2003.0081 . Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  4. ↑ a b Trace Reddell: Ethnoforgery and Outsider Afrofuturism . In: Griffith University ePress (Ed.): Dancecult . 5, No. 2, 2013, pp. 89-90. doi : 10.12801 / 1947-5403.2013.05.02.05 . Retrieved March 22, 2014.
  5. ↑ Fitzpatrick, Rob, "The 101 strangest records on Spotify: Warp 9 - It's A Beat Wave," May 14, 2014 [1]
  6. ↑ Mark Sinker: Black Science Fiction . In: Exact Editions Ltd. (Ed.): The Wire . February 1992, p. 30.
  7. ↑ Alondra Nelson (interviewee) - Afrofuturism
  8. ^ Alondra Nelson: Introduction: Future Texts . In: Social Text: Special Issue on Afrofuturism . 20, No. 2, 2002, ISSN  1527-1951 , pp. 1-15. doi : 10.1215 / 01642472-20-2_71-1 . Retrieved March 16, 2014.
  9. ↑ Janelle Monáe - PrimeTime ft. Miguel [Official Video ]. Retrieved March 5, 2016
  10. ↑ Many Moons
  11. ↑ Michael A. Gonzales: [BLACK ALT What Is Afrofuturism?] . Ebony. October 1, 2013. Retrieved February 14, 2014.
  12. ↑ John Calveri: Janelle Monáe: A New Pioneer Of Afrofuturism . In: The Quietus , September 2, 2010. Retrieved March 16, 2014. 
  13. ↑ Jerry L. Barrow: Janelle Monae's Top 5 Sci-Fi Movies Of All Time . In: The Urban Daily: Beats, Buzz, & Lifestyle . April 14, 2009. Retrieved March 19, 2014.
  14. ↑ Ytasha Womack: Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture . Chicago Review Press, 2013, ISBN 9781613747995 , p. 70.
  15. ↑ ((The Dark Side Trilogy)) Book One: Discovery - by William Hayashi . Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  16. ^ William Hayashi: Discovery: Volume 1 of the Darkside Trilogy . Xlibris, December 4, 2009, ISBN 1441586946 .
  17. ^ William Hayashi: Conception: Volume 2 of the Darkside Trilogy . XLIBRIS, October 21, 2013, ISBN 149310005X .
  18. ^ Tempestt Hazel: Black To The Future Series: An Interview with Krista Franklin . In: The Chicago Arts Archive: A Sixty Inches from Center Project . May 28, 2012. Retrieved March 19, 2014.
  19. ↑ Richardson, Jared. (2012) "Attack of the Boogeywoman: Visualizing Black Women's Grotesquery in Afrofuturism." Art Papers Magazine 36. 6
  20. ↑ SL Price: Serena Williams is SI's Sportsperson of the Year . Retrieved April 25, 2016.
  21. ↑ Leaf, Aaron: Ibeyi, Laolu Senbanjo, Warsan Shire Featured In Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' . Okay Africa. April 23, 2016. Archived from the original on April 25, 2016. Retrieved on April 23, 2016.
  22. ^ Tray by Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner's Mothers Appear in Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' video . April 24, 2016. Archived from the original on April 25, 2016. Retrieved on April 25, 2016.
  23. ↑ D. Scott Miller: AfroSurreal Generation: AFROSURREAL MANIFESTO . Archived from the original on December 14, 2013.
  24. ↑ Ruth Mayer: Africa As an Alien Future: The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds . In: Amerikastudien / American Studies . No. 45.4, 2000, pp. 555-566.
  25. ↑ Kodwo Eshun : Further Considerations of Afrofuturism . In: CR: The New Centennial Review . 3, No. 2, 2003, pp. 287-302. Retrieved December 19, 2014.