2013 - The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto - Martine Syms

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/dec/17/mundane-afrofuturist-manifesto/ copia de 04-10-2018

Texto

The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto By Martine Syms Dec 17, 2013

Martine Syms, film still produced for the cover of Most Days (2014). LP. Mixed Media Recordings, Brooklyn.

The undersigned, being alternately pissed off and bored, need a means of speculation and asserting a different set of values with which to re-imagine the future. In looking for a new framework for black diasporic artistic production, we are temporarily united in the following actions.

- - The Mundane Afrofuturists recognize that:***

We did not originate in the cosmos.

The connection between Middle Passage and space travel is tenuous at best.

Out of five hundred thirty-four space travelers, fourteen have been black. An all-black crew is unlikely.

Magic interstellar travel and/or the wondrous communication grid can lead to an illusion of outer space and cyberspace as egalitarian.

This dream of utopia can encourage us to forget that outer space will not save us from injustice and that cyberspace was prefigured upon a "master/slave" relationship.

While we are often Othered, we are not aliens.

Though our ancestors were mutilated, we are not mutants.

Post-black is a misnomer.

Post-colonialism is too.

The most likely future is one in which we only have ourselves and this planet.

Coco Fusco, Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira Animal Psychologist (2013).

- - The Mundane Afrofuturists rejoice in:***

Piling up unexamined and hackneyed tropes, and setting them alight.

Gazing upon their bonfire of the Stupidities, which includes, but is not exclusively limited to:

Jive-talking aliens;

Jive-talking mutants;

Magical negroes;

Enormous self-control in light of great suffering;

Great suffering as our natural state of existence;

Inexplicable skill in the martial arts;

Reference to Wu Tang;

Reference to Sun Ra;

Reference to Parliament Funkadelic and/or George Clinton;

Reference to Janelle Monáe;

Obvious, heavy-handed allusions to double-consciousness;

Desexualized protagonists;

White slavery;

Egyptian mythology and iconography;

The inner city;

Metallic colors;

Sassiness;

Platform shoes;

Continue at will…

- - We also recognize:***

The harmless fun that these and all the other Stupidities have brought to millions of people.

The harmless fun that burning the Stupidities will bring to millions of people.

The imaginative challenge that awaits any Mundane Afrofuturist author who accepts that this is it: Earth is all we have. What will we do with it?

The chastening but hopefully enlivening effect of imagining a world without fantasy bolt-holes: no portals to the Egyptian kingdoms, no deep dives to Drexciya, no flying Africans to whisk us off to the Promised Land.

The possibilities of a new focus on black humanity: our science, technology, culture, politics, religions, individuality, needs, dreams, hopes, and failings.

The surge of bedazzlement and wonder that awaits us as we contemplate our own cosmology of blackness and our possible futures.

The relief of recognizing our authority. We will root our narratives in a critique of normative, white validation. Since "fact" and "science" have been used throughout history to serve white supremacy, we will focus on an emotionally true, vernacular reality.

The understanding that our "twoness" is inherently contemporary, even futuristic. DuBois asks how it feels to be a problem. Ol’ Dirty Bastard says "If I got a problem, a problem's got a problem 'til it’s gone."

An awakening sense of the awesome power of the black imagination: to protect, to create, to destroy, to propel ourselves towards what poet Elizabeth Alexander describes as "a metaphysical space beyond the black public everyday toward power and wild imagination."

The opportunity to make sense of the nonsense that regularly—and sometimes violently—accents black life.

The electric feeling that Mundane Afrofuturism is the ultimate laboratory for worldbuilding outside of imperialist, capitalist, white patriarchy.

The sense that the rituals and inconsistencies of daily life are compelling, dynamic, and utterly strange.

Mundane Afrofuturism opens a number of themes and flavors to intertextuality, double entendre, politics, incongruity, polyphony, and collective first-person—techniques that we have used for years to make meaning.

Neil Beloufa, Still frame from Production Value (2013).

- - The Mundane Afrofuturists promise:***

To produce a collection of Mundane Afrofuturist literature that follows these rules:

No interstellar travel—travel is limited to within the solar system and is difficult, time consuming, and expensive.

No inexplicable end to racism—dismantling white supremacy would be complex, violent, and have global impact.

No aliens unless the connection is distant, difficult, tenuous, and expensive—and they have no interstellar travel either.

No internment camps for blacks, aliens, or black aliens.

No Martians, Venusians, etc.

No forgetting about political, racial, social, economic, and geographic struggles.

No alternative universes.

No revisionist history.

No magic or supernatural elements.

No Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, or Bucks.

No time travel or teleportation.

No Mammies, Jezebels, or Sapphires.

Not to let Mundane Afrofuturism cramp their style, as if it could.

To burn this manifesto as soon as it gets boring.

— Martine Syms & whomever will join me in the future of black imagination.

Most Days is a Mundane Afrofuturist sound work released on vinyl by Mixed Media Recordings, due to be released in early 2014. The audio consists of a table read of an original screenplay alongside a score composed in collaboration with artist Neal Reinalda. The piece considers what an average day looks like for a young black woman in 2050 Los Angeles. For this piece, I adapted the literary rules of "Mundane Science Fiction." I produced a film still for "Most Days" to assert its reality and circulate it within visual culture.

Contexto

The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto de Martine Syms fue publicado por primera vez en el año 2013 por el sitio web Rhizome (1), hecho que desencadenó un proyecto audiovisual que se concretaría en el año 2015 (2).

How did the Artbound episode come about?

KCET Artbound did these shows with MOCAtv, and [artist] Khalil Joseph and I had done a video with MOCAtv's producer Emma Reeves. It was called "Memory Palace." It corresponded with [Joseph's] show that was up at MOCA. They originally asked me if I would make a film about him, but he doesn't like to be on camera, and I wasn't interested in doing that either, so we talked about using that film as an opportunity to work on something together. It was a fun, small project. ["Selma" and "A Most Violent Year" cinematographer] Bradford Young shot it, [singer] Alice Smith performed in it, and I created the narrative out of ideas Khalil and I had been talking about. So, that was part of this MOCAtv episode with Artbound, and as part of that, they interviewed me, asking me questions about my work. That's when I brought up this idea of Afrofuturism, which is something that I'd been thinking about, because I had just put out "Black Radical Imagination," and I had made this record ["Most Days"] that was for Afrofuturists. So, I was already in that mindset. Maybe a month later, they were like, 'Hey, would you want to develop it into an episode of Artbound?' I'd never worked in that way. It was so much more traditional than anything I'd ever done.

Tell me about the inception of "The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto." Was it something that you had been thinking about for awhile?

No, not at all. So, mundane science fiction is an offshoot of sci-fi, and I had heard about that several years before through this now-defunct newsletter these graphic designers [were publishing]: Emmet Byrne, who is the design director at the Walker Center [in Minneapolis], and Alex DeArmond and Jon Sueda. They had this journal called "Task Newsletter," which is still one of my favorite magazines. They had a whole issue about mundane science fiction. So that was how I heard about that -- that was about 2010.

Then I was working on this sound piece -- "Most Days," the record. But I never had considered myself in this vein of Afrofuturism. Being in Chicago, it's hard not to become a fan of Sun Ra. I had seen "Space is the Place" when I was in college, and there had been a show at Hyde Park Art Center. I was aware of it, but I didn't consider it my thing.

But that year, I kept getting embroiled in it through Black Rad and through another talk that I did in L.A. that was all about sci-fi. And then a friend of mine, Claire Evans, became an editor of "OMNI Reboot," which was an old sci-fi magazine from the '70s, and I had written two things for them. Then Rhizome approached me about writing something about "Most Days" for this series that they do called "First Person," where they ask a writer to elaborate on a project. At first, I was writing something artist statement-y -- it was really bad, academic writing. I was like, 'Oh, this is so stupid.' And then I was riding a train -- I still have the sticky note from when I had the idea -- I had the idea to mash the two: 'Write mundane science fiction manifesto about Afrofuturism.' And then I went home and did it. It took like five minutes. The funny thing about it was, there was also a show at the Studio Museum that winter that was all about Afrofuturism. So I think it was really about timing that it ended up being a real conversation starter. It really involved me in a lot of the discussion about Afrofuturism. I had read [science fiction authors] Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler, and I had read the "Black to the Future" essay by Mark Dery, and I had been aware of all those things, so it wasn't like I was a total novice. But I didn't identify with it.

What have been some of the reactions to the essay?

A lot of people my own age -- and a lot of writers -- have taken the term on to talk about music, fashion, and other artworks. Alondra Nelson and Mark Dery were both interested in it as it being something that pushed the conversation. It definitely made a lot of people upset, and continues to do that. The word 'mundane' can have a negative connotation to a lot of people, so it can seem like I'm saying to be unimaginative, or to confine yourself, or silence yourself -- none of which are things that I'm saying. FUENTE 1

A new season of "Artbound" is on! Tune in 9 p.m. ET/PT Tuesdays. Episodes will also be streaming here following its broadcast, as well as on Amazon, YouTube, Roku and Apple TV.

"Artbound" is an Emmy® award-winning arts and culture series that examines the lives, works and creative processes of arts and culture innovators making an impact in Southern California and beyond. Through broadcast episodes and multimedia projects, "Artbound" brings to light the region’s rich cultural legacy and diversity. Now on its ninth season, "Artbound" is the winner of multiple Emmys, Golden Mikes and Press Club awards.

The role of "Artbound" is not just to record, report and broadcast the cultural stories of our time and our region; our aim is to create mechanisms — be it partnerships, projects or online tools — through which audiences participate in an ongoing narrative. FUENTE 2, QUÉ ES ARTBOUND https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound

The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto is an hourlong film that proposes a new theory of the black aesthetic of the 21st century. Through a close reading of works by four Southern California artists engaged with problems of representation, the episode walks through their artistic and creative processes and inspirations. The episode features in-depth interviews with writer Tisa Bryant, musician/producer Delroy Edwards, curator Erin Christovale, and video artist Nicole Miller. Created in collaboration with the award winning creative studio Ways and Means and premiering on KCET’s Artbound, the hourlong special examines the tension between conventional channels of media distribution and the Black imagination. fUENTE 3 http://www.martinesy.ms/projects/the-mundane-afrofuturist-manifesto

Autoras

Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles) uses video and performance to examine representations of blackness. Her artwork has been exhibited and screened extensively, including presentations at the Museum of Modern Art, Hammer Museum, ICA London, New Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, among other institutions. She has lectured at Yale University, SXSW, California Institute of the Arts, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, and MoMA PS1, among other venues. Syms’ recently presented exhibitions include Projects 106: Martine Syms, Museum of Modern Art; Borrowed Lady, Simon Fraser University Galleries, Vancouver; Fact and Trouble, ICA London; COM PORT MENT, Karma International, Los Angeles; Vertical Elevated Oblique, Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York. From 2007-2011 she was the co-director of the Chicago artist run project space Golden Age, and she currently runs Dominica Publishing, an imprint dedicated to exploring blackness in visual culture. She is the author of Implications and Distinctions: Format, Content and Context in Contemporary Race Film (2011). Her first US solo museum exhibition Projects 106: Martine Syms, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in May of 2017. She is a faculty member in the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts. http://www.martinesy.ms/about