Afrofuturism

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In his book More Brilliant Than The Sun, Kodwo Eshun gives a concise summary of history of the term:

AfroFuturism comes from Mark Dery's '93 book [Flame Wars], but the trajectory starts with Mark Sinker. In 1992, Sinker starts writing on Black Science Fiction; that's because he's just been to the States and Greg Tate's been writing a lot about the interface between science fiction and Black Music. Tate wrote this review called "Yo Hermeneutics" which was a review of David Toop's Rap Attack plus a Houston Baker book, and it was one of the first pieces to lay out this science fiction of black technological music right there. And so anyway Mark went over, spoke to Greg, came back, started writing on Black Science Fiction. He wrote a big piece in The Wire, a really early piece on Black Science Fiction in which he posed this question, asks "What does it mean to be human?" In other words, Mark made the correlation between Blade Runner and slavery, between the idea of alien abduction and the real events of slavery. (cont.)

Music

  • Sun Ra's The Arkestra, started in mid-1950s.
  • George Clinton, Mothership Connection, 1975.
  • Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Black Ark, studio and label, 1973-78.

Fiction

  • Jalada 02: Afrofuture(s), ed. Moses Kilolo, et al., Nairobi: Jalada Africa, 2015. A collection of short stories and poems centred on the genres of Afrofuturism and AfroSF.

Documentary

  • The Last Angel of History, dir. John Akomfrah, 45 min. Written and researched by Edward George of Black Audio Film Collective. Explores relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and computer technology. Featuring Tate, Eshun, Goldie, Clinton, Derrick May and others. [1]

Resources

Writings

Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures In Sonic Fiction, 1998, Log, PDF.
Social Text 71: "Afrofuturism", ed. Alondra Nelson, 2002, Log, PDF.

Events

Links


Literature
groups, movements, cultures

Avant-garde and modernist magazines, Artists' publishing, Vorticism, Dada, Zenitism, Estridentismo, Surrealism, Concrete poetry, Zine culture, Afrofuturism, Shadow libraries, Code poetry, Conceptual writing, Alternative literature, Conceptual comics. Art and culture, Contents, Index, About.