{"id":1175,"date":"2017-04-11T22:40:13","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T21:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2017-04-18T09:52:14","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T08:52:14","slug":"undercover-afrofuturism-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/undercover-afrofuturism-12\/","title":{"rendered":"UNDERCOVER AFROFUTURISM (1\/2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Afrofuturism is often seen a music &amp; sci-fi literature movement, tooled to empower black folks facing a country, a White systemic frame with no room for them in its historical narration, past or present.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1223\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/souljor-oshun-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1272\" height=\"672\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/souljor-oshun-1.png 1272w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/souljor-oshun-1-300x158.png 300w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/souljor-oshun-1-768x406.png 768w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/souljor-oshun-1-1024x541.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1272px) 100vw, 1272px\" \/><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Video still from\u00a0<span class=\"irc_su\" dir=\"ltr\">Oshun&#8217;s music video &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fYBRappkqSc\" target=\"_blank\">Protect Your Self ft. Proda<\/a>&#8216;, 2016.<\/span><\/h5>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Yet from Vice to the Guardian magazine, from Rihanna to Achille Mbembe, from Afropunk Festival back in Paris to Black Portraitures here in Johannesburg\u2026 reports on afrofuturism embrace an endlessly growing multiplicity of forms, leading to question if afrofuturism is even\/truly unifying or just an impetus circumscribed to a certain &#8220;community&#8221;. Eg. black-America, trend prescribers or an intellectual elite&#8230; <strong>Does Afrofuturism have an effective \/ tangible impact worldwide ?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">In his latest book, \u2018Politics of Hatred\u2019, Achille Mbembe develops on how nowadays democracy is forswearing itself in the name of the struggle against its \u00ab\u00a0un-democratic\u00a0\u00bb ennemies. Yet, hasn\u2019t Sun Ra already given an answer to this, when, in his 1971 Berkley lecture \u2018The Black Man in the Cosmos\u2019, he said : <strong>\u00ab\u00a0Black folks need a mythocracy not a democracy. [\u2026] \u00bb<\/strong>. And indeed wouldn\u2019t the whole world benefit from some re-enchantment\u2026?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">This panel will attempt to show how, by embracing alternative narrations instead of a systemic narrative, <strong>Afrofuturism, beside being an artistic &amp; performative statement, stands also as a political, metaphysical AND branding tool to question &#8211; if not redefine &#8211; our contemporary world<\/strong>, and so doing, point limits to the &#8220;sacramental&#8221; definitions of mankind, culture, time and mediation.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li class=\"li6\"><span class=\"s1\">First the idea is to review Sun Ra\u2019s legacy, aside from the only point of view of its hyped limits: the guy truly set a methodology for breakthrough and alterity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li6\"><span class=\"s1\">Second, I will hint to the ethics afrofuturism is forging all the more in the context of the new civilization transition and the critical need for inclusiveness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li6\"><span class=\"s1\">Third, I will try to illustrate how afrofuturism is also, inherently a performative speech (alike a mantra or an hashtag) whose power grows in relation to its invocation.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Branding as a political statement<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"s2\"><b>&#8220;We want to be listened to, not heard ; watched at, not seen&#8221;<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Guess what so I won\u2019t develop*, Sun Ra is recognized to be the father of Afrofuturism\u2026 Dragged by the late 50\u2019s space race context, he saw in the announced \u00ab\u00a0Space Age\u00a0\u00bb, a promise for him and black fellows to finally escape a country that considers their lives &amp; expectations as irrelevant. His Arkestra would become a space-ark appointed to lead his dark-skinned companions towards a renewed Earth and to restart History. As for himself, he would become the Saturnian Archangel descendant of the eponymous Egyptian God of the Sun on a mission to preach peace.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1232\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Sun-Ra-Arkestra-singer-June-Tyson-Berliner-JazztageBerlinGermany-november-1971..jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"583\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Sun-Ra-Arkestra-singer-June-Tyson-Berliner-JazztageBerlinGermany-november-1971..jpg 900w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Sun-Ra-Arkestra-singer-June-Tyson-Berliner-JazztageBerlinGermany-november-1971.-300x194.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Sun-Ra-Arkestra-singer-June-Tyson-Berliner-JazztageBerlinGermany-november-1971.-768x497.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Sun Ra Arkestra: Berliner Jazztage, Berlin, Germany november, 1971 (dancer: Ife Toyo), \u00a9 Jan Persson &amp; CDJ<\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">By doing so he prompted metaphors &#8211; mythical and mythological, (science-)fictional and religious &#8211; that later became essential to a dynamic highlighting the Black people distinctiveness, from how it was negatively stated towards History and how it could be, from now on, positively performed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Far from fantasy ; Sun Ra ensured to make the World unable to doubt his otherness, his chosen otherness : not only did he register his name change to Le Sony&#8217;r Ra ; really suffering from cryptorchidism he also, like angels, didn\u2019t have a sex. As of his Egyptian alien ascendancy\u2026 what were African-American folks if not that? Out of all, he got to be one of the first, yet heartfelt and sophisticated examples of self-branding. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">According to Belgian music storyteller Pierre Deruisseau, Sun Ra &amp; his group recorded over 120 discs from late 50s to early 90s, performed all across the US but also in Europe, Nigeria, Egypt, Japan. Above all, as of 1957, he created \u00ab\u00a0El Saturn Research\u00a0\u00bb, one of the first US independent labels all the more created by a black musician. Sun Ra would then compose, record and release what he wants, whenever he wants, gaining an unparalleled freedom of action. \u00ab\u00a0I had to have something, and that something was creating something that nobody owned but us.\u00a0\u00bb would he say.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1229\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/3708-Sun-Ra-e1491945844401.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"760\" height=\"397\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/3708-Sun-Ra-e1491945844401.jpg 427w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/3708-Sun-Ra-e1491945844401-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/h5>\n<h5 class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Covers of Sun&#8217;Ra&#8217;s album &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=V2gmdMhVjTA\" target=\"_blank\">Monorail and Satellites<\/a>&#8216; on his own Saturn label<span class=\"irc_su\" dir=\"ltr\">, 1968 (later reissued on CD\u00a0by Evidence in 1992).<\/span><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">His use of the growing craze for jazz and \u00ab\u00a0black music\u00a0\u00bb as a leverage to share his message &#8211; eclectic, impossible, dense &#8211; became indeed one significant game-changer, demonstrating that a black man could know how to set his own broadcasting channels &amp; produce his own stages.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Thus, whether purists like it or not, the legacy of Sun Ra is also to be found through the use nowadays of its myth as advertising patterns ! When you are doomed with poverty porn or exoticism, knowing how to publicize oneself is also part of cutting loose. And from Chimurenga\u2019s \u2018Pan African Space Station\u2019 to Janelle Monae &amp; her \u2018Wondaland\u2019 label, from Ana\u00efs Duplan\u2019s \u2018Center for Afrofuturist Studies\u2019 to us, \u2018Black(s) to the Future\u2019 ; we surely understand afrofuturism as a methodology for action in order to produce and develop, not only alternative narrations, but channels to broadcast them. Branding ourselves is a way to reach out to more people and overthrow the shyness, the fear that we, as black people, wouldn\u2019t be worth a wider, if not massive, attention.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1225\" src=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-20-at-8.26.11-PM-620x266-e1491946666984.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"760\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-20-at-8.26.11-PM-620x266-e1491946666984.png 449w, http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-08-20-at-8.26.11-PM-620x266-e1491946666984-300x168.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Video still from Missy Elliott&#8217;s music video \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=opkRF3UZSJw\" target=\"_blank\">She&#8217;s A B**ch.<\/a>\u201d,<span class=\"irc_su\" dir=\"ltr\">\u00a02009.<\/span><\/h5>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\">___________________________<\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">* : or maybe I will ! At least, in order to introduce you to our <strong>&#8216;Space is the Place&#8217; subtitles, made by our very own and amazing Justine Rousseau<\/strong>., here are few words about the film :<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;In 1971 producer Jim Newman approached John Coney, a producer\/director at public television station KQED in San Francisco, with a proposal for a thirty minute performance documentary on the Sun Ra Arkestra. Sun Ra immediately saw the film as an opportunity to make a statement about conditions of black people on planet earth &#8211; and as a powerful medium for his music as a vehicle for lifting them out of their collective misery. Production began in 1972 with filming and recording the Arkestra, a spaceship landing, a visit to an Egyptian tomb, and a mythic celestial planet derived from Ra\u2019s interpretation of passages from <i>The Book of Urantia<\/i> as realized in Golden Gate Park. After many months of editing, screen writer Joshua Smith was hired to work on the story line and turn the project into a coherent narrative film. All these efforts resulted in what we know today as the film <i>Space is the Place<\/i>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; To get the French subtitles, it&#8217;s free : just reach us through <strong>love@blackstothefuture.com<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/undercover-afrofuturism-22\/\" target=\"_blank\">read part 2 =&gt;<\/a><\/h3>\n<h2 class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Links for more<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4s8VZz-ERO0\" width=\"560\" height=\"314\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Space is the Place <a href=\"http:\/\/www.outerspacewaysinc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">official website<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Achille Mbembe, &#8216;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.editionsladecouverte.fr\/catalogue\/index-Politiques_de_l_inimitie-9782707188182.html\" target=\"_blank\">Politics of Hatred<\/a>&#8216; (in French)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Pierre Deruisseau, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.astrophonie.net\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Astrophonie<\/em><\/a>\u00a0website (in French)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Chimurenga\u2019s \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/panafricanspacestation.org.za\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pan African Space Station<\/a>\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">Ana\u00efs Duplan\u2019s \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicspaceone.com\/cas\/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for Afrofuturist Studies<\/a>\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Cover :<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/barrywhittaker.com\/sitp.html\" target=\"_blank\">Barry Whittaker<\/a>, Space is the Place, Plotter prints with metallic ink on paper, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year in october, we subtitled Sun Ra&#8217;s unique &#8216;Space is the Place&#8217; in French. It was about time we share it with you ! \/ Though, as we are the talkative type it is also the opportunity to share with you few thoughts we developed on a speech in Johannesburg at the occasion of Black Portraitures III Conferences (november 2016).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1,27,8],"tags":[36,34,33],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-blackboard","category-essay","category-sounds-motion","tag-advantage-backwardness","tag-black-future-art","tag-afrofuturism","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1258,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions\/1258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blackstothefuture.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}