Mothership

Eric Kluitenberg (12 March 2013) - The Mothership

Introduction: Afrofuturism
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Black to the Future: Afro-Futurism 1.0 by Mark Dery

Mark Dery was the first to coin the term 'afro-futurism', in this essay from 1995.

The Last Angel of History
Last Angel of History, from 1996, is a documentary by John Akomfrah. In this 45-minute doc he draws parallels between Pan-African culture, science fiction and computer technology. He interviews black cultural figures, including musician George Clinton, novelist Ismael Reed and cultural critics Greg Tate and Kodwo Eshu.

Data Thief

The documentary also contains a fictional element: the story of the Data Thief, "a bad boy, scavenger, poet figure" looking for a crossroads to make an archaeological dig, where he can find fragments that combined will be the key to the future. He has one clue: Mothership Connection.

Media Archaeology
Study of the media apparatus.

Black Rights Movement
Wallace Fard Muhammed

African and Egyptian Mythology combined with a Western future
"Egyptian Mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world."

Sun Ra, or Herman Poole Blount was fascinated by Egyptian mythology. During his Chicago Years (1945-1961), he was fascinated by the cities many Egyptian-styles buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James Stolen Legacy in which James argues that Greek philosophy had it's roots in ancient Egypt. During the late 1950s Sun Ra and his band began wearing Egyptian styled costumes mixed with science fiction elements. For the band these uniforms had multiple purposes, they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a uniform for the Arkestra and it didn't look like they took themselves as seriously as other avant garde artists.

The costumes they were wearing in a way turned the performers into an object, something that had to be given thought or reconsidered. Racial assumptions were dismantled by the surreal and absurd way of performing an act. The way in which the Afrofuturists portrayed themselves made them disconnect from the dominant black image in the 80s. They created a new universe, and by doing so a new future.

Back to Africa


Marcus Garvey and the Black Star Line

Marcus Garvey (1887 - 1940) was born in Jamaica and the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). He created the 'Back to Africa' movement in the United States, urging African-Americans to return to their homeland.

Garvey founded the Black Star Line to facilitate this return, a shipping line for the transportation of goods and African Americans from the United States to West-Africa. It was in operation between 1919 and 1922 and to Garvey it was a business, similar to the succesful White Star Line. According to Erik Kluitenberg the project was no success. Not only did it fail as an economic enterprise, but the Black Star Line also couldn't deliver on the promise of 'returning people to their ancestral home'. Born and raised in the USA, Africa didn't feel like home to these African Americans, so there was nothing to 'go back to'.

Erik Kluitenberg: "Going back to Africa makes no sense. These people were born in the United States. They've been there for generations, they're not Africans. [...] Why this datathiefing? It's an alien love?"

Sun Ra
Both in Funk and LSD are perceived as technologies, that allows transcending