Permutation do both- afrofuturism can use hauntological speculation to uncover lost stories.

As a dissection of all of the layers that combine to constitute a performance, the ‘Verfremdungseffekt’ is a relevant precursor to hauntology. Essentially, hauntology shares with Brechtian theatre the same function of deconstruction. The past is deconstructed and shown as it exists and is perceived from inside the present. Hauntology is about transcending the forcible reconciliation of representations as reality to focus on the social dimensions of these representations. Through deconstruction, these social dimensions are deconstructed and excavated until internal contradictions are discovered, and in turn, a space is carved out for alternatives. Hauntology exists in a temporal dyschronia where traces of lost futures spasmodically emerge from the past and unsettle the present. In an Afrofuturist context, “hauntology is the proper temporal mode for a history made up of gaps, erased names, and sudden abductions.”90 By reassessing the validity of historical texts and discourses that have so often proliferated the subjugation of people of the African diaspora, hauntology opens a space for the archaeological reevaluation, and the identification of new truths and narratives that had hitherto the point of observation remained undetected. Through deconstruction, the phantoms of history that cannot be ‘ontologised’ away91 are reintroduced into relevance and discourse, and the singular narratives associated with official historical record are shown to be incomplete. The aesthetic effect of hauntology can be applied to a wide variety of texts and subjects. As we will see in Krista Franklin’s ‘Money Folder’, the hauntological aesthetic arises from the contextual factors surrounding the image. Franklin’s collage technique abstracts the images in the piece and imbues them with new meanings that case a spotlight on the lurking specters of the past. Sampling and Collage in Afrofuturism Sampling and collage are mediums for cutting, ripping, and tearing apart normative culture, and the oppressive and hegemonic structures of society. They allow an artist to subvert linear narratives and ascribe a text with their own, personal meaning. The sample also empowers the viewer/listener to formulate their own perspectives, their own aesthesis Meanings of a text that have been established on face value are destroyed and hidden ones are revealed. Contrary to universal hegemony collage is “a metaphor for universal continuous change. It is both the result of a blind impulse and directed process. The transformation is driven by the desire of each entity to be itself, blending into a wider landscape where other objects interact.”92 Collage is one of the many techniques that Ohio born artist Krista Franklin uses in her work. In ‘Money Folder’ (Figure 1) she uses collage to construct an alarming scene where it is insinuated that the power of money and purported financial equality provides a sufficient premise with which to atone for, and forget the horrors of historical oppression. The central figure of the piece is a ‘black-faced’ vaudeville era performer whose face is awash with an expression of petrified helplessness. He is subserviently licking the white glove in his hand, an interaction that is notably highlighted by Franklin, as the man’s tongue is the only coloured element of an otherwise monochromatic figure. In black and white we have the circus of top hats, make up, and stage shows, all relics of the past. In the present, live and in colour, we have the pink tongue of subservience. Franklin shows that while it may not be as explicit or elaborate as it used to be, the power structures that reinforce the disparity between black and white are remain as effectual as ever The collage appears as a sequential layering of processes. The foundational layer has ‘Devant’, ‘Frente’, and ‘Fron’ (with a missing ‘t’) listed down, all of which mean ‘in front of’ in the three main colonial languages: English, Spanish, and French. This insinuates a disregard for the past, and a focus on the present. The next layer, a loose coupon for ‘Magic’ shaving powder, confirms the erasure of the past. ‘Magic’s’ logo is of a razor next to the words ‘no more trouble’. The powder is marketed as being “formulated for black men to help stop razor bumps.”93 The metaphor of a ‘smooth and clean shave’ is fitting for ‘Money Folder’. The folded edge of the coupon shows that it is being removed for use, presumably in an act to forget the ‘rough and bumpy’ past in favour of an embrace of the purported ‘smoothness’ of modernity. The packaging is enticing the black man to rid himself of the vicissitudes of his skin’s past. Dollar bills appear all over the collage, fragmented over the canvas and the only entity that interacts with every other piece of the artwork. Opaque hundred dollar bills provide the foundations upon which the character, the stereo player, and the advertisement lie. A translucent fifty-dollar bill disappears further as the coupon is extracted. The scene is a paradox. Without money one has no means to a voice, as portrayed by the stereo, gramophone, and mask, yet money is being spent to ‘remove’ the ‘razor’ sharp constituents of history. Meanwhile, the objects at the front of the collage lay benign. The stereo’s volume gauges indicate silence; the gramophone’s needle is set aside, and the mask lies dormant on its side with its eyes closed, dead. Culture has been rendered utterly helpless, and the voices of yesteryear have been shelved and silenced. Magic, according to parent company L’Oreal, “believe everyone should be able to celebrate his or her beauty with confidence. And for people of colour that means they should be able to express how they want to look, and, ultimately, who they uniquely want to be.”94 Krista Franklin refutes this ‘ultimate’ correlation. ‘Money Folder’ makes a statement that is akin to Mignolo’s ‘AestheTics vs AestheSis’ thesis, as Franklin unequivocally rejects the validity of a societal reconstruction that she regards are purely aesthetic. Aesthetic, surface transformations are in no way capable of exorcising the specters of the past. Sampling is the key theme of John Akomfrah’s 1996 film, ‘The Last Angel of History’, in which the main protagonist is known as the ‘Data Thief’. A metaphor for Afrofuturism, the ‘Data Thief’ travels through time acquiring artifacts of Afro-diasporic expression in an attempt to discover the ‘mothership connection’. The price that he pays for traveling through time is that he forfeits the right to be a part of his society’s modernity. The most effective form of data thievery is sampling, and, by utilising this method, The ‘Data Thief’ uses both the past to create new visions of the future, and the knowledge that he brings from the future to re-contextualise the past. For a population in which many have no base heritage, sampling is the motion capture and adaptation mechanism that is deployed for survival. Sampling is a means for navigating an experience of constant flux. Sonically, sampling allows for a simultaneous cross-referencing of generational creators in which all eras of black music are digitally immortalised. “Sonic futurism doesn’t locate you in tradition, instead it dislocates you from origins.”96 The sonic futurism breaks from genealogies, and rejects all notions of a compulsory black condition. Afrofuturist musicians travel through time, taking inspiration from their predecessors and collecting samples to surgically stitch together an innovative new creation. In the sonic realm, hauntology appears in the form of a sample. The sample disrupts the listener’s auditory experience, and adds a new dimension to the act of listening where the listener is cognizant of the intrusion into the present of a fragment of the past. The consequential fictions created by recursive sampling adopt meaning, and imbue past sounds with a layer of hauntological significance. Writing in 1957, Norman Mailer brilliantly articulated the dilemma of the Afrofuturist musician, “we are obliged to meet the tempo of the present and the future with reflexes and rhythms which come from the past; the inefficient and often antiquated nervous circuits of the past strangle our potentiality for responding to new.”97 Sampling is a means through which the musician can overcome this dilemma, and free themselves from the obligations and ‘choking’ grip of the past. Sonic hauntology allows for a diversion from the constraints on innovation that are caused by a linear continuation of the cultural narratives of the past, into a space of possibility that caters for the creation of new sounds that are unique to contemporaneity. Mark Fisher captured the synergy between Afrofuturism and ‘sonic hauntology’ perfectly, “Afrofuturism unravels any linear model of the future, disrupting the idea that the future will be a simple supersession of the past. Time in Afrofuturism is plastic, stretchable and prophetic – it is, in other words, a technologized time, in which past and future are subject to ceaseless de- and recomposition.”98