Afrofuturism challenges linear notions of progress

Nettrice R. Gaskins “Afrofuturism on Web 3.0 Vernacular Cartography and Augmented Space”, Afrofuturism 2.0 The Rise of Astro-Blackness.

AFROFUTURISM AND TECHNO-VERNACULAR CREATIVITY Afrofuturism is not a black version of the early twentieth century Italian futurism since it is not solely concerned with the future. Instead, Afrofuturism navigates past, present, and future simultaneously. Afrofuturism is coun- ter-hegemonic and not concerned with representing the mainstream or the canon of Western art. Afrofuturism advocates for the revision of accepted, long-standing views, theories, historical events, and movements. It retells history, altering characters and/or the environment by re-using existing arti- facts, themes, and concepts such as quilt-based signposts, star charts, and even the heliocentric model of the universe. One such example of vernacular mapping is found on the cover of Sun Ra’s 1965 album, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One. The album cover references heliocentric theory in which jazz musician and cosmic philosopher Sun Ra (Ra being the Kemetic/ Egyptian god of the sun) positions himself at the center of other known Western cosmic philosophers and scientists. Sanford Biggers defines Afrofuturism as “a way of re-contextualizing and assessing history and imagining the future of the African Diaspora via science, science fiction, technology, sound, architecture, the visual and culinary arts and other more nimble and interpretive modes of research and under- standing” (Sanford Biggers quoted in Castro 2012, 124). Afrofuturism un- leashes what theorist Arjun Appadurai identifies as the social imaginary, specifically a “technoscape” that embraces the “semantic, cultural, and creative aspects of science and technology” (1996, 31). In Afrofuturism, the technoscape is sustained through techno-vernacular creativity, and by extension, the cultural art and technology produced by African diaspora communities. Such work accepts that technological meaning is culturally and historically grounded and, as a result, becomes located within a larger social imaginary. Afrofuturism then, is an antecedent for techno-vernacular creative pro- duction. such as do-it-yourself (DIY) techno culture and the merging of cultural and religious traditions as in the case of syncretism, all of which highlight the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate practices. Techno-vernacular creativity consists of three methods. The first, reappropriation, describes how Afrofuturists reclaim cultural artifacts, often to counter dominant social or political systems. Artists in the African Diaspora reclaim and adapt traditional symbols and systems such as the cosmogram that is a cultural map of the Universe. This universal cultural glyph represents the cycle of life, or a crossroad between the spiritual and material worlds. The second method, improvisation, is the practice of performing, creating, problem solving, or reacting in the moment and in response to one’s environment and inner feelings. Improvisation results in the invention of new practices, artwork, and/or new ways of acting. Reinvention (of the self) is the third method. Identity refers to the self or essential being of a person. Artists often question commonly held assumptions and stereotypes, self-awareness, portraiture, and what it means to be an artist in their work. Sun Ra came up with the term “myth science” to explain how to re-create oneself in a place of oppression.3 Sun Ra explored reinvention of identity through the creation of an alternate personality or avatar. Afrofuturists often use digital and non- digital avatars as tools for transcendence, reinvention, or for existing in and moving between worlds or realities. Rayvon Fouché, a cultural historian of technology, formulated the con- cept of “black vernacular technological creativity,” otherwise referred to here as techno-vernacular creativity (2006). Fouché references James Brown’s 1969 musical anthem “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” as representative of the African American desire to reclaim, recover, and articulate self- claimed black identity and expression. Fouché references the late author and critic Amiri Baraka’s prescient 1971 essay “Technology and Ethos” as in- itiating the conversation about vernacular space. Baraka called for African Americans to rethink their relationships with technology and take action to make technology more representative of their culture. He further asserted that through black technological utterances rooted within black cultures and communities, technology would be more responsive to the realities of black life in Western societies (Baraka 1971, 157). Artist and scholar Duane Deterville further builds upon this contention by drawing on “continental African cultural ethos, contemporary technology, and artistic actuation in a self-de- termined, representational space” that he describes as the Afriscape.4 Fouché describes black vernacular technological as re-deployment (reap- propriation), re-conception (improvisation), and re-creation (reinvention) as a basis for creativity and innovation. Re-deployment reinterprets technology while maintaining its traditional use and form, such as using the Twitter social networking platform, otherwise known as “Black Twitters,” to focus on interests of African American communities. According to a 2013 Pew Research Center report, twenty-six percent of African American Internet users tweet compared to fourteen percent of non-Hispanic white American, online users (Duggan and Brenner 2013). Reappropriation counters the hege- monic practice of reabsorbing vernacular into mass culture through commod- ification. Twitter hash tags #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen and #BlackPowe- rIsForBlackMen encouraged many users to engage in conversations about how ideologies such as feminism often omit the voices of women of color. Through the reappropriation of online social networking, Black Twitterers have redeployed the participatory Web 2.0 platform as a communication tool more representative of black culture. Re-conception is the active redefinition of technology that transgresses its designed function and dominant meaning. DIY techno culture and aesthetics reflect the myriad social and cultural fac- tors that shape access to technological resources. In African American and other historically marginalized communities, production reflects creativity and innovation within settings of limited technological resources. Brenda Dixon Gottschild asserts that “African American culture has always been subversive and improvisatory, by force of circumstance” (Gottschild 1996, 117). Black speculative fiction writer Octavia Butler’s novels re-conceptual- ize notions of utopia that hinge on the belief that the progress of technology serves to advance society to a state absent of inequality. Afropunk is a multi- genre platform for the African American experience and DIY technoculture is a foundation. Artist Cyrus Kabiru crafts Afrofuturistic pieces—most fa- mously his one-of-a-kind “C-STUNNERS” spectacles—from recycled waste and objects he finds on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya. For “Blossom”—a life- sized tree constructed with a piano emerging from it—Sanford Biggers re- conceptualizes the piano and programs it using a MIDI controller to play his improvisation of “Strange Fruit,” an anti-lynching protest song made popular by the Blues singer Billie Holiday. Kabiru and Biggers utilize the DIY meth- od of “making do” with found materials to create their artwork. Blossom and other examples demonstrate Afrofuturistic re-conception of and DIY improv- isation with technology in ways that mirror the past and present.