The Mythsciences, Chronopolitics and Conceptechnics of Afrofuturism
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Other Planes of Tere: the MythSciences, chronopolitics and conceptechnics of Afrofuturism tobias c. van Veen Communication Studies and Philosophy McGill University, Montréal March 2014 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfllment of the requirements of the degree of Ad Personam Doctor of Philosophy. © tobias c. van Veen 2014 Other Planes of Tere. Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Preface vi Chapter 00. I Am Not A Human Being... 01 Chapter 01. Rewind the Records: 43 Afrofuturism In & Out of the Academy Chapter 02. Vessels of Transfer: 96 Allegories of Afrofuturism in Jeff Mills and Janelle Monáe Chapter 03. In Advance of the Landing 146 Chapter 04. We Have Never Been Human 183 Chapter 05. God-breathing Machines: 247 Te White Mythologies of Consciousness Chapter 06. Calling Planet Earth 322 Chapter 07. Inconclusive: Cosmospolitanism 385 Bibliography 399 Discography and Filmography 417 ii Abstract “Other Planes of Tere: the Mythsciences, chronopolitics and conceptechnics of Afrofuturism” explores the becomings, temporalities, and epistemic systems of Afrofuturism. Afrofuturism — a term more complex than it frst appears — delineates a counter-tradition of Afrodiasporic media production, thought, and performance that transforms science fctional practices and themes to envision alternate identities, timelines, and counter-realities. Such envisioning operations create startling, creative, and uncanny effects — ofen, by imaginatively challenging whitewashed futures and colonialist histories with Africentric and futurist revisionings, so as to alter the discriminatory coordinates of the present — while crucially offering ways to subversively transform Afrodiasporic subjectivities denied privileged access to the “human race”. Afrofuturism, I contend, postulates the conceptual thoughtware of its own production: its MythScience, chronopolitics, and conceptechnics. By explicating Afrofuturism through its network of concepts, I outline its production of counter-realities and explore its performative unEarthings of the grounds of human being. By tracing the Afrofuturist exodus from the category of the human, I detail how its practices adopt and disseminate alien, android, machinic, and otherworldly becomings. iii Abstrait « D’autres pensées venant de là-bas : les sciences mythiques, les chronopolitiques et les conceptechniques de l’afrofuturisme » explorent les devenirs, les temporalités et les systèmes épistémiques de l’Afrofuturisme. Afrofuturisme - un terme plus complexe qu'il n'y paraît - délimite une contre-tradition de production de médias afrodiasporiques, de pensée et de performance qui transforme les pratiques et les thèmes scientifques fctifs afn de visualiser des identités, des échéances et des contre réalités alternatives. Ces opérations de visualisation permettent de créer des effets étranges, créatifs et surprenants - souvent, en remettant en cause, à l’aide d’imagination, des avenirs étouffés et des histoires colonialistes avec des reconsidérations futuristes et afrocentriques, de façon à modifer les coordonnées discriminatoires du présent - tout en proposant de manière déterminante des moyens de transformer subversivement les subjectivités afrodiasporiques qui se voient refuser l’accès privilégié à la « race humaine ». Je soutiens que l’Afrofuturisme se donne les moyens de produire sa propre pensée conceptuelle : ses Sciences mythiques, sa chronopolitique et ses conceptechniques. J’explique l’Afrofuturisme à travers son réseau de concepts, soulignant sa production de contre- réalités tout en explorant sa capacité à révéler son humanité. Je trace l'exode afrofuturiste à partir de la catégorie des humains, en détaillant la manière dont elle adopte et diffuse les devenirs étrangers, androïdes, machiniques et autres devenirs fantastiques. iv Acknowledgements I owe a debt of immense gratitude to Dr. Jonathan Sterne, my supervisor, for his eternal patience and guidance. My deepest thanks to Dr. Philip Buckley, who had faith, as co-supervisor. My deepest thanks to Dr. Alia Al-Saji, for all of her efforts, as former co-supervisor. My thanks to Dr. Darin Barney, who provided space and time at Media@McGill. Tanks to my colleagues at McGill, Dancecult, UpgradeMTL, SLSA, and elsewhere, with whom I feasted upon ideas: Neal Tomas, Jen Spiegel, Anna Feigenbaum, Graham St John, Katharine Wolfe, Sha LaBare, Anik Fournier, Sophie Le-Phat Ho, Kentyah Fraser, Richard Pope, Dave Pires, Greg Taylor, Trace Reddell, Mark Fisher, Cary Wolfe, Marcus Boon, and Lyric London Rossler. Tere have been a few professors and teachers who catalysed me into action: Lorraine Weir, Kieran Kealy, Janet Giltrow, Sherill Grace, Pamela Dalziel, Mr. Russell, Mr. Harris, Stan Engstrom, Grant Carrier, Al Pitchler, Mr. Fadum and Mr. Geiger. Without the music there would be nothing: deep bows to Mad Mike and Cornelius Harris of Underground Resistance, DJ Spooky Tat Subliminal Kid, Jeff Mills and Yoko at AXIS Records, Cindi Mayweather, Killah Priest, Sun Ra, Kool Keith, dub gnostic, and nora posch. For RAMM:∑LL:Z∑∑, who ascended to the Supreme during this writing. His chapter remains unfnished, but only because it calls for a book. Shining sun and warm thanks to Cato Comte, who read most of it, and endured it all. My personal thanks to Douglas Pulleyblank, who knew why, and how. Tis dissertation could not have been written without the loving support of my parents, who more than once postponed a fight, and my sister, who kept me in check. Tank you. You can book the tickets now. Boundless love to Nanny — the theremin made me do it. v Preface Original contributions in this doctoral thesis include the cultural and philosophical study of Afrofuturism and the exposition of a philosophy of becoming and exodus in Afrofuturism drawn from Afrofuturist concepts: conceptechnics, chronopolitics, MythScience, Armageddon been-in-effect, and Alien Nation. Te concepts of “offworlding” and “unEarthing” constitute original conceptual interventions within philosophical discourses of (human) becoming and studies of post-humanism. vi Chapter 00 I Am Not A Human Being... By 2010, Afrofuturism had returned to the heights of pop culture, its alien, outer space, and time travel motifs appearing in the most unlikely of places: hip-hop superstar Lil’ Wayne, the self-declared “Greatest Rapper Alive” from New Orleans, had titled his latest album I Am Not A Human Being (2010).1 Te title suggested not only Lil’ Wayne’s bizarre displays of rhyme and public strangeness — perhaps due to leanin’;2 perhaps due to subsequent reports of several seizures requiring medical treatment;3 perhaps due to a string of arrests for weapons and drug possession leading to incarceration;4 perhaps due to invasive and signifcant dental surgery5 — but a trope of Afrofuturism that plays on the historical fact of slavery: that blackness, despite its supposedly pop culture status, remains unhuman. Or 1. It appears Afrofuturism has become bankable. In the 21st century, both science fction and black culture alike have emerged from marginality to occupy aspects of the commodifed centre. It is worth pointing out the economics of this transition. Taken as pop culture phenomena, both science fction and black culture have become multibillion dollar franchises. Disney purchased Lucasflm’s Star Wars empire for 4.05 billion US dollars (Quinn 2012). Rapper Jay-Z is worth an estimated $450 million (Jurgensen). Science fction, like blackness, has merged with the technological pallor of everyday life and its cycles of cultural profteering. Te grandiose visions of the future that permeated the “Golden Era” of early to mid-20th century science fction — jetpacks, robots, space travel, fying cars, talking computers — have, in some ways, already passed into quaint oblivion at the same time that its more mundane but far more powerful telecommunications technologies have revolutionised labour and production. I say that Afrofuturism has “returned” because of its prior pop culture resonance in the 1970s and ‘80s — just as blackness is bought and sold, once again, in a repeat of its originary commodifcation under slavery. 2. A mix of prescription-strength cough syrup (featuring codeine and promethazine) with Sprite, sometimes with Jolly Rancher candy for favour, and popular in the Southern hip-hop scenes. Leanin’ apparently originates from Houston, Texas. Te effect is usually described as “dissociative”, including from one’s own body parts. Feeling unhuman afer a quantity of lean would probably be an apt descriptor. 3. Te popular press details a string of sudden and unexplained hospitalisations throughout 2012 and into 2013. On March 18th, 2013, Wayne admitted he had epilepsy: “Tis isn't my frst, second, third, fourth, ffh, sixth or seventh seizure. I've had a bunch of seizures. Y'all just never hear about them. But this time, it got real bad because I had three of them in a row” (2013, “Lil Wayne Says Tat He Suffers From Epilepsy", ComplexMag.ca, 28 March, accessed 04 October 2013: <http://www.complexmag.ca/music/2013/03/lil-wayne-says-that- he-suffers-from-epilepsy>. 4. Arrests that appear especially vindicative and targeted, and of the type dished out to the Beatles and the Stones in the 1960s and ‘70s. Wayne was arrested for drug possession when his tour bus was searched in 2008, as well as for smoking marijuana in NYC in 2007; the weapons charge was for a frearm registered to his manager, which was in a bag by his person. For these offences Wayne has served a year in prison (March 2010–2011) at Riker’s Island plus 36 months probation.