Creating History with Afrofuturism

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Black Utopia

Cauleen Smith’s Black Utopia exists in two parts: an LP and a film. The LP is a remix of recordings of Sun Ra’s performances, rehearsals, and interviews to create a new album. Smith's LP also includes poetry by contemporary Chicago-based artists Krista Franklin and Avery R. Young. The film uses footage of Sun Ra’s archives, historic 35mm slides of various occult imagery, and Smith’s original content. With these pieces of the past and present, Smith depicts Ra as having reached a utopic ideal to which contemporary artists should aspire.

Originally from Saturn, Sun Ra (1914-1993) was an avant garde artist in the mid-20th century. His films and music fused ancient African motifs and fantastic visions of the future. He believed that black people could find utopia after abandoning Earth. Unable to travel the galaxy, Ra tried to build utopia with his musical group Arkestra. Many members of the band were trained by Ra. The Sun Ra Arkestra were considered to be “cultural activists who used...musical performances to develop a critical commentary on what they saw as a moment of acute crisis for black Americans.” (Sites 697-8) Ra had the ability to gather like-minded people together and use art as political activism. Smith’s piece acknowledges the fact that Sun Ra’s work is now history but can be remembered as a utopia from the point of view of the present. The collaborative nature of her work echoes Ra and extends his reach into the future.

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from Black Kirby. John Jennings and Stacey Robinson. 2012.

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from Black Kirby. John Jennings and Stacey Robinson. 2012.

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The image “Crazy Watermelon Tales: Son of the Son of the Invisible Man” features a young black man whose brain is hooked up to complex machinery. He uses his thoughts to mentally struggle against the machine while a voice from off-page yells ‘WE CAN HEAR YOU, BOY.” Aesthetically this drawing is clearly meant to appropriate comics. There is a price label and indications to other entries in the supposed series. Instead of portraying harmful stereotypes like early Jack Kirby comics, Black Kirby’s work references more realistic African American concerns, such as the existence of centuries of anti-Black brainwashing. The young man on the cover is named as a literal descendent of the Invisible Man. A closer reading will show that he is a spiritual successor to Ralph Ellison’s novel of the same name.            

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from Black Kirby. John Jennings and Stacey Robinson. 2012.

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“The Unkillable Buck: Enter the Ghetto Golem” explicitly refers to harmful stereotypes as white fantasies. The “buck,” which is a slur used to dehumanize black men, takes up most of the frame, overshadowing the white figures. His humanity is up for debate with the question “Is he a man or a monster?” floating near his head. The white characters also play into archetypes: the white women who sexualizes the black man and the white man who intends to protect her. There is also a white male scientist who appears to be inextricably linked with the “buck.” These components illustrate some of the ways in which white people use race to dehumanize others. Even the price of the comic is 3/5c. This is a reference to the Three-Fifths Compromise, a clause in the United States Constitution which declared that only 3/5 black people counted toward a state’s human population.

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Black Kirby

Black Kirby by John Jennings and Stacey Robinson was an exhibition consisting of the duo’s original drawings. Using the aesthetic and conceptual style of comic book artist Jack Kirby, the pair created a series of illustrations depicting black men. The men in Black Kirby display motifs that, for better or for worse, popular culture associates with African American society.

Acclaimed comic book artist and writer Jack Kirby (1917-1994) created characters such as Captain America, X-Men, and The Black Panther. He is credited with developing the visual style of comic book superheroes that is still widely used today. Kirby's work was frequently at an intersection of politics and entertainment. For example, the characters in X-Men are superpowered humans who face prejudice and oppression from nonpowered humans. The X-Men’s fight for self-determination can be seen as a metaphor for the Civil Rights Movement. Created in 1966, The Black Panther was the first series about a black superhero. It featured storylines about a fictional post-colonial African nation and depicted several harmful tropes including the “black brute,” and the “dark continent.”

According to Jennings, Black Kirby works by “signifying on the name of Jack Kirby as a jumping off point to discuss the lack of diversity in the superhero genre, deal with making historical connections, and investigate new ways of making meaning by fusing various modes of production found in numerous pop culture artifacts.” (Jennings to Chambliss) The cultural references Jennings and Robinson make indicate a false history of comics. They explore what could have been possible if early black superheroes were more aligned with the reality of black life.

“The Unkillable Buck: Enter the Ghetto Golem” explicitly refers to harmful stereotypes as white fantasies. The “buck,” which is a slur used to dehumanize black men, takes up most of the frame, overshadowing the white figures. His humanity is up for debate with the question “Is he a man or a monster?” floating near his head. The white characters also play into archetypes: the white women who sexualizes the black man and the white man who intends to protect her. There is also a white male scientist who appears to be inextricably linked with the “buck.” These components illustrate some of the ways in which white people use race to dehumanize others. Even the price of the comic is 3/5c. This is a reference to the Three-Fifths Compromise, a clause in the United States Constitution which declared that only 3/5 black people counted toward a state’s human population.

The image “Crazy Watermelon Tales: Son of the Son of the Invisible Man” features a young black man whose brain is hooked up to complex machinery. He uses his thoughts to mentally struggle against the machine while a voice from off-page yells ‘WE CAN HEAR YOU, BOY.” Aesthetically this drawing is clearly meant to appropriate comics. There is a price label and indications to other entries in the supposed series. Instead of portraying harmful stereotypes like early Jack Kirby comics, Black Kirby’s work references more realistic African American concerns, such as the existence of centuries of anti-Black brainwashing. The young man on the cover is named as a literal descendent of the Invisible Man. A closer reading will show that he is a spiritual successor to Ralph Ellison’s novel of the same name.

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The Spaceship from Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere. Kiluanji Kia Henda. 2008.

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The Launch from Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere. Kiluanji Kia Henda. 2008

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Astronomy Observatory from Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere. Kiluanji Kia Henda. 2008.

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Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere

Kiluanji Kia Henda's project Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere tells the story of a fictional space mission sponsored by the country of Angola. It consists of a series of photographs of real sites in Angola which Henda recontextualizes to fit his narrative. For example, the building depicted in Astronomy Observatory is actually an unfinished outdoor theater that was abandoned during the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002). Launch from Icarus 13 is an image of the sky the night that Angola qualified for the 2006 World Cup. The project is a reflection on Angola’s journey as a post-colonial country.

The title of Henda’s work is a reference to the Greek myth warning against hubris. In the story, Icarus' father invents a pair of wings that allow humans to fly. Before Icarus is able to use them, his father warns him not to fly too close to the sun, as the heat will melt the wings. Icarus refuses to heed his father's advice and flies too high, melting the wings and plummeting to his death. Henda's Icarus can be seen as a reworking of this myth. The edifice pictured in the photograph The Spaceship from Icarus 13 is an unfinished Russian structure holding the body of independent Angola's first president and influential poet Agostinho Neto (1922-1979). It reaches toward the sky, dwarfing neighboring buildings. Tall monuments have been used in many cultures to assert sovereignty and intimate a proximity to divinity. Here, Henda presents it as a spaceship. Manmade devices that can travel the cosmos are commonly used in speculative art to connotate humanity’s potential to dominate nature. Henda’s “spaceship” is made from steel, a byproduct of iron, and covered in diamonds. These two resources are prevalent in Angola. Iron was once a major export from the country but a lack of infrastructure caused Angola to stop mining it. Diamonds mines flourish, making Angola the world’s third largest producer of the gemstone.

As part of the lore in Icarus 13, the astronauts and “air stewards” wear “Cool Suits” that are “equipped with tanks filled with Budweiser that allow them to support the heat of the odyssey.” (Henda) Henda uses these items to symbolize outside influence in Angola's economics and consumerist habits. Icarus 13 can serve as a warning akin to the Greek myth: progress with caution or you may be destroyed by Westernization.

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Cauleen Smith. Black Utopia.

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“Somewhere Over the Cosmic Rainbow”

Excerpt from Black Utopia LP. Written and Performed by Krista Franklin. Start at 16:00. Duration 2.5 min.

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"Second Stop is Jupiter"

Excerpt from Black Utopia LP. Start at 7:23. Duration 1min.

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Works Consulted

Chambliss, Julian. “Black Kirby NOW: An Interview with John Jennings.” PopMatters: The Iconographies. February 20, 2014. http://www.popmatters.com/feature/179294-black-kirby-now-an-interview-with-john-jennings/

Coleman, Beth. "Race as Technology." Camera Obscura 70, Volume 24, Number 1.

Dery, Mark. "Black to the Future." in Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. http://www.detritus.net/contact/rumori/200211/0319.html

Foran, Jack. "Comic art by John Jennings and Stacey Robinson at Hallwalls." Artvoice, Issue 11 Vol 49, December 2012. http://artvoice.com/issues/v11n49/art_scene/black_kirby

Hazel, Tempestt. “Black to the Future Series: An Interview with Cauleen Smith.” Sixty Inches from Center, Chicago Arts Archive. http://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/archive/?tag=black-to-the-future

Hewitt, Leslie. “Artists in Conversation: Cauleen Smith.” BOMB 116, Summer 2011. http://bombmagazine.org/article/5111/

laFleur, Ingrid. "Visual Aesthetics of Afrofuturism." TEDx Fort Greene Salon, youtube, Sept 25, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7bCaSzk9Zc

Keith, Naima J. “Looking for the Invisible.” in The Shadows Took Shape. Harlem, NYC: The Studio Museum in Harlem. pp. 12-17.

Klein, Michael J. “Modern Myths: Science Fiction in the Age of Technology.” in At The Interface / Probing The Boundaries 85, November 2012. pp. 255-279.

Nelson, Rachel. "(Mis)seeing in/as Contemporary Art: Kiluanji Kia Henda and the Afronauts." Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 33, no. 1, 2013. pp. 38-45.

Osherow, Michele. "The Dawn of a New Lilith: Revisionary Mythmaking in Women's Science Fiction." NWSA Journal 12, no. 1, Spring 2000. pp. 68-83.

Sites, William. “Radical Culture in Black Necropolis: Sun Ra, Alton Abraham, and Postwar Chicago.” Journal of Urban History 38. 2012. pp. 687-719.

Temple, Christel N., “The Emergence of Sankofa Practice in the United States: A Modern History.” Journal of Black Studies. Vol. 41. No. 1. September 2010. pp. 127-150.

Walton, Jo. "Time Travel and Slavery." Tor. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/04/octavia-butlers-kindred21

Yaszek, Lisa. "An Afrofuturist Reading of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man." Rethinking History Vol. 9, No. 2/3, June/September 2005. pp. 297 – 313.

Yaszek, Lisa. "Afrofuturism, Science Fiction, and the History of the Future." Socialism and Democracy Vol.20, No.3, November 2006. pp.41–60.