fluid radicalisms Staff

Editorial Board Alessandra Raengo Lauren M. Cramer Kristin Juarez Cameron Kunzelman fluid radicalisms Michele Prettyman-Beverly Social Media Katharine Zakos Managing Editor Richard Moye Visual Design and Layout Samantha Bowersock Chris Hunt Cover Image Chris Hunt Issue Staff Christopher Minz Mary Feld Christina Romo Consultant Nedda Ahmed

volume 1, issue 4 November 2014 Contents OVERVIEW 5 Contents 7 Introduction 12 Essays 86 Contributors Charles P. “Chip” Linscott 88 Acknowledgements

14 The Ghosts of John Akomfrah Kristin Juarez

30 Inside and Out: The Open Hand in the Work of Donald Rodney and Keith Piper Clinton FlUker

46 Akomfrah’s Angel of History Cameron Kunzelman

60 The Fluidity of Black Radicalism in 1980s Britain Abbas Barzegar

72 Seeing and Reading Al-Islam: The Visual Rhetoric of the Islamic Party of North America’s Newspaper (1971-78)

liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 5 Introduction

This fourth issue of liquid blackness was planned in experimentation and political radicalism that does not conjunction with the Black Audio Film Collective Film follow prescribed paths but magnifies the expansive and Speakers series, which liquid blackness hosted possibilities of both; and second, the malleability at Georgia State University on September 26-28 and of both the idea and “stuff” of radical politics. October 3-4, 2014. The series brought for the first time to Atlanta (and in some cases for the first time in While the idea of the “black radical tradition” has an the US) the entire available output of the Black Audio established place in critical race studies, from Cedric Film Collective (1982-1998). Like most liquid blackness Robinson to Fred Moten, we claim a particular investment initiatives, this too was conceived simultaneously as in the concept of fluidity, because we are interested in a research project, an event, and as the impulse for a investigating not only the aesthetics, but also the politics of body of scholarship sampled in this issue. Here, liquid black liquidity. In the contemporary moment, black liquidity blackness members and other contributors begin to captures the mobility, plasticity, and pervasive qualities interrogate some of the ideas of “fluid radicalism” that of blackness, in ways that might offer a new ground for inspired our interest in BAFC’s films. This project is part our collective social and cultural interactions; yet, we of a larger investigation of trajectories of radical thought recognize that these same qualities license seemingly and art practice across the Black Atlantic that began unbound trajectories of appropriation, affection and with the work showcased in the “L.A. Rebellion: Creating eroticization that dramatically undo this radical potential. a New Black American Cinema” we explored last Fall. We therefore need to ask, as Cameron Kunzelman puts it in this issue, how black liquidity might concretely affect Initially, our working concept of “fluid radicalism” the ability for people of color to act in the world. This indicated two things: first, an encounter between artistic and similar questions prompted us to seek resonance

6 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 7 between our inquiry and forms of radicalism developed in footage in order to eschew facile and one-sided historical The permeability between theoretical innovations and mummified monumentalism of the imperial archive in historical contexts that demanded an urgent definition of explanations. Finally, it has highlighted the fluctuating artistic practices deployed in pursuit of strategically the hope that, as David Lawson put it during the series, the question of political, artistic, and social representation. authorship inherent in BAFC’s collective practice in the “unfinished” concepts of both identity and representation: “if we looked hard enough, we would find black lives.”3 context not only of similar developments in Black Arts BAFC’s dedication to voicing various elements of the The format of our engagement with BAFC’s work is in Britain at the time, but also of the possibility for art to heterogeneous migrant communities, while avoiding the This very tension—between black filmmaking’s purported central to our investigation: screening all the films afford experimentations with alternative forms of sociality. “indignity of speaking on behalf” of these same people, as necrophilia and the commitment to find an image that can in the space of two weekends allowed us to see a well as its commitment to an antirealist filmmaking style, both render and safeguard black lives—pushes, at least complicated artistic and political vision unfold and to Other examples of fluidity came to the fore: are evidence of its absorption of the scholarly debate for me, the idea of BAFC’s fluid radicalism even further. witness the collective’s unwavering commitment to formal advanced by black British intellectuals around the politics While BAFC’s pursuit of absent ruins, and the spectral experimentation. BAFC work exploited the possibilities of The charged malleability of the idea of blackness at narratives that are interlaced with the very archival of representation and the pitfalls of “authenticity.”2 audio-visual media (from the tape slide shows originally the time. The way the designation “black” in Britain practices that silence them, has been described as the was seized as an identity marker and a claim to presented as live performances, to the early adoption BAFC’s immersive “logic” of plunging available historical “ghosts of songs” and understood within an hauntological of DigiBeta technology, which afforded the deployment political and artistic visibility for a whole generation of and artistic archives in order to “poeticize,” and inject view of history, BAFC’s overarching melancholia also of hallucinatory aesthetics even within traditional diasporic communities from the Commonwealth did not with an epic gravitas, images originally produced and works in a different direction. Rather than seeking an documentary formats). The collective’s experimentation prevent the mobilization of ideas of “blackness” in the mobilized within the debasing logic of empire. As Chip impossible suturing within narratives that repeatedly is also clear in its hybrid approach to genre: from the opposite direction: to perpetuate the marginalization Linscott argues in this issue, BAFC leveraged sonic construct blackness as lack, BAFC’s work makes space investigative documentary to the lyrical essay film, from of the spaces and identities it was desired to describe. flows as models for a plastic recombinatory logic of for lack; indeed, it seizes it and claims it as a potential, the haunting political memoir to the sci-fi narrative. This Unavoidably, this flexible idea of blackness put pressure temporal and spatial relations within social, cultural and and poetic, dwelling place. In the process, the diasporic intensive viewing has exalted how BAFC’s aesthetics of on the very idea of “black” art and black culture, which temporal geographies of the diaspora. Through the subject too transforms from a subject perpetually out sampling and collage embrace the productive friction comes to index an “unknown territory,” the possibility leaks and seepages he identifies, sound offered also of sync, to a vessel of futurity; from a subject confined between existing archival and original, on-the-ground of “an infinity of traces without… an inventory.”1 the lead to a quasi-necrophilic immersion in the stifled, to the “belly of the photochemical beast” to one that

8 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 9 thinks and imagines “digitopically,” along culturally and context. Her discussion of images of the outstretched hand exchange in the British celebrity scene. Abbas Barzegar’s racial oppression in the US. This case study, which emerges geographically fluid trajectories of identification; from as a fold between the inside and the outside of both the essay, which concludes the issue, analyzes the rhetorical from an archiving project on African-American Islamic a subject marred by the diasporic lack of origin to one body and the archive highlights the political stakes of art- strategies employed in the cover images of Al-Islam, the movements in the US—the After Malcolm Digital Archive that indexes enactments of cosmopolitan citizenship.4 making for diasporic artists at the time. Clint Fluker directs newspaper of the Islamic Party of North America, in order hosted at Georgia State University—indicates how the his attention to the concept of history mobilized in the to mediate the tension between its internationalist Islamic necessity to maintain ideological fluidity might impact the This issue of liquid blackness has a primarily historical canon-defining and canon-producing Afrofuturist film The commitment and the need to address the specificity of material and visual culture practices of radical groups. focus, but the idea of fluidity that runs through the Last Angel of History by attending to the way the figure essays highlights how its approach is grounded of the “Mothership Connection” guides the film’s fluid in concerns of the present. movements across musical and intellectual trajectories Alessandra Raengo Approaching the centrality of the sonic and the musical of the Black Atlantic to catalyze an idea of futurity the Coordinator in BAFC’s practice as “both affective implements of diasporic subject attempts to both envision and negotiate.5 memory and structural-theoretical scaffolding for cultural Cameron Kunzleman retrieves forms of “fluidity” in the production,” Chip Linscott reads the figure of the ghost way the very idea of “black radicalism” was mobilized in mobilized to characterize BAFC’s relationship to the archive wildly disparate directions within a series of discourses and the history of repressed presence of blackness in and practices that coalesced around the 1970s and 1980s Britain as a sonic configuration that productively haunts race riots in Britain. Focusing on the figure of Michael some recent films by John Akomfrah. Kristin Juarez’s X—the subject of the stunning Who Needs a Heart?, a focus on Donald Rodney and Keith Piper, two pivotal visual film that, through a disjunctive use of sound, poetically 1 John Akomfrah, quoted in Kodwo Eshun, “Drawing the Forms of Things Unknown,” in Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar, eds., The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art of the Black artists in the 1980s Black Arts Movement in Britain, locates emphasizes its own inconclusive conclusions about the Audio Film Collective (Liverpool University Press, 2007), 78. BAFC’s output within its larger artistic and intellectual enigmatic “black radical” figure—Kunzelman’s essay 2 David Marriott, “Inheritances,” “Specters of History” Symposium at Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, Oct. 3, 2014. I use the term “unfinished” to echo John shows how “radicalism” could be deployed as a token of Akomfrah’s homage to Stuart Hall, in the three-screen video installation The Unfinished Conversation (2013), who was central in these debates. 3 The idea of black cinema as necrophilic is advanced by John Akomfrah, quoted in Kobena Mercer, “Post-colonial Tauerspiel,” in Ghosts of Songs, 46. 4 John Akomfrah, “Digitopia and the Specters of Diaspora,” Journal of Media Practice 11, no. 1 (2010): 21–29. 5 The comment about the Afrofuturist canon was voiced by Kara Keeling, in her introductory remarks to the screening of The Last Angel of History, Black Audio Film Collective Film and Speakers series, Georgia State University, September 26–28 and October 3–4, 2014.

10 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 11 th e n i n e m us es (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 2010, s m o ki n g dogs fi lm s), fr am e g r ab .

LB IMAGE For Article The work of the Black Audio Specifically, I argue that films in Last Angel, and Miles Davis’ jazz understands them. Avery Gordon man in question is haunted, in part Film Collective (BAFC) has been such as The Last Angel of History operates as commemorative filament writes: “If haunting describes how by his generally unfulfilled desires poetically recalled as “the ghosts (John Akomfrah, 1995), Digitopia throughout The Stuart Hall Project. that which appears to be not there for a prostitute named Tanya, and The Ghosts of songs” in a gallery retrospective (John Akomfrah, 2001), The Nine is often a seething presence, acting in part by broader affective and Further, Akomfrah’s work posits and subsequent critical anthology.1 Muses (John Akomfrah, 2010), on and often meddling with taken- conceptual states—tensions between of John These titular “songs” vastly exceed and The Stuart Hall Project (John radical philosophies of history for-granted realities, the ghost is just analog and digital, the socius and the their primary denotation; hence, they Akomfrah, 2013) engage the sonic and time founded on the present- the sign, or the empirical evidence if collective, humans and nature—that are also stories, forgotten histories, and the musical as both affective absence of Africana peoples within you like, that tells you a haunting is constitute the dense combination of the archive. The director’s oeuvre Akomfrah diaphanous traces of memories, implements of memory and taking place.”2 Thus, ghosts haunt history and subjectivity that Gordon and, especially, images and sounds structural-theoretical scaffolding treats history and time as disjunctive, us—they do things—affectively characterizes as modern social quarried from the impossible archives for cultural production. While sound imbricated and nonlinear; therefore marking their presence and founding life. Digitopia uses sound—ticking of the black diaspora. While the and music are constitutive flows making them available for remixing, modern social life by pulling us “into clocks; blowing wind; street noise; collective disbanded in 1998, such within the archive, they also leak improvisation, and reconfiguration. To the structure of feeling of a reality and especially phone conversations, ghosts continue to vex the work of through its seams. This seepage put it differently, the future is in the we come to experience, not as cold which are the primary, technologically Charles P. “Chip” pioneering director John Akomfrah, results from both sonic/musical past is in the present, and all are open knowledge, but as a transformative distanciated mode of interaction to, or in dire need of, re-vision. John Linscott who, along with co-producers representational ambiguity and the recognition.”3 Ghosts, then, come between the man and his unrequited and former BAFC members David irregular attention paid to archival Akomfrah undertakes nothing less in myriad forms, and this essay lover—to express the alienation and Lawson and Lina Gopaul (Smoking sonicity. Regarding the former, sound than a reimagining of the aesthetics, looks at a few that persistently loneliness of contemporary existence. Dogs Films), consistently generates and music are representationally epistemologies, and ontologies of flit through Akomfrah’s art. The film juxtaposes images of natural groundbreaking experimental abstruse; they thus allow for a African-descended peoples—such sublimity (mountains, lakes, the sky) cinema. In this piece, I will probe vigorous, recombinant logic that are the specters that haunt his art, Digitopia sets the stage, outlining a and magnificent cityscapes with Akomfrah’s recent work at several incites the undoing of archival and which he haunts in return. This number of key concerns. Smoking the spectral life led by a man who, fundamental nodes—sonic/musical, codification and encourages myriad essay feels the ghosts as they pass. Dogs’ website describes the film as despite his “connectedness” through archival, and historico-temporal— regenerations. Hence, funk, hip-hop, a “drama about a man who lives in modern technology, is estranged. I understand Akomfrah’s work to an analogue world but seeks to fulfill all of which are grounded in and techno provide inspiration for take ghosts seriously, if not exactly Repeated shifts of Digitopia’s his desires in a digital world.”4 The iterations of the black diaspora. an Afrofuturist remixing of history in the way popular culture typically dominant chromaticism—ruddy,

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aquamarine, sepia, jade, and ashen ravages, even as his understanding a diasporic circulation from Africa nonlinearly—calls and responses cut- tones—do little to alter the somber of universal temporality to America to the United Kingdom. up and remixed. Not coincidentally, and unsettled tenor. At several points interpenetrates his quotidian The film gestures at blues form in the man’s final desperate plea is a during the voiceover, the man muses longings. He holds time in his hands, that it is haunted by sorrow and proposal for the two of them to flee philosophically on the potential but fails to grasp it (Figure 1). desire. Yet, Digitopia reaches back their lives in the United Kingdom for effects of universal contraction on into the archives of the black Atlantic a fresh start together in America. personal history: “If the universe In these ways, this short video diaspora for historically important This fraught attempt at transatlantic was contracting, she would be in epitomizes a concern with time and American blues music, using expatriation—a return to the my past.” In the end, neither the history that is the loam of much of these songs to configure its filmic birthplace of the blues—is brutally deep time of the universe and the Akomfrah’s work, especially insofar structure, affect, and signification. rejected. There will be no shelter, natural sublime, nor the humanist as his films and writings unsettle The film depicts the intense, no solace. In these ways, Akomfrah technological “conquest” of nature, linear temporality in favor of time emotionally charged unraveling of locates a trace of what is to come provides solace for a man who merely travel and the rewriting of history. In a relationship—the subject of much in the past, and a trace of what has wants to be loved. Time haunts particular, Akomfrah wants to shatter blues music—through multiple been in the future, a move that he him, but he cannot truly mitigate its the archive for its historically racist iterations of “call-and-response” repeats in a number of other works. exclusions and erasures, while also structure, or antiphony. With strong mining its images and sounds for roots in Africa, antiphony is of The brief haunting enacted by shards with which to piece together signal importance to most black archival blues songs in Digitopia history anew. This is sometimes an popular musics, including blues, jazz, becomes a grand gesture in Stuart understated procedure. Digitopia, Hall. Previously, in Nine Muses, (r i g ht) fi g u r e 1: gospel, rock, and hip-hop. The film’s for example, interweaves black Akomfrah employed graphic The frustrated lover narrative is in fact anchored by a American blues music from the onscreen titles marking different holds time in his hands telephonic call-and-response, as the early 20th Century (by Ramblin’ filmic sections, one for each of the di g ito pia male lover pleads with Tanya and is Thomas, Mississippi Fred McDowell, repeatedly rejected. While causal nine Greek goddesses of inspiration. (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 2001, and Charley Patton) to convey the That graphic practice continues here, s m o ki n g dogs fi lm s), fr am e g r ab . connections can be discerned, the affects of the forlorn lover and signify relationship’s trajectory is depicted but marks periods of Hall’s life in

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“When I was about nineteen or twenty, Miles Davis put his finger on my soul...”

(lef t) fi g u r e 2: Imbricated Layers: A photograph of young Stuart Hall is placed in front synchronization with periods of Miles the film and Hall’s life. Hall poetically sure, has such power; as Kodwo of a record player, which is spinning Davis’ music, which accompanies intones: “When I was about nineteen Eshun puts it: music maintains a Miles Davis album; both objects sit various filmic sections. For example, or twenty, Miles Davis put his finger a “despotic drive to crumple before a dreary cityscape viewed Miles’ Filles De Kilimanjaro 1968 on my soul…the various moods of chronology like an empty bag of through blurry windowpanes appears onscreen, announcing a Miles Davis matched the evolution crisps, to eclipse reality in its willful th e stuart hall proj ec t segment of early BBC appearances of my own feelings…and some exorbitance, to put out the sun.”5 (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 2013, and bits from Hall’s young career. of the nostalgia for what cannot s m o ki n g dogs fi lm s), fr am e g r ab . Such titles also tell us that the be is in the sound of Miles Davis’ Together, the diverse elements film is composed “entirely from trumpet.” Hence, the film is haunted of Stuart Hall form a dense [Hall’s] film, television, radio, and by “what cannot be”—lives not lived, orchestration of different tracks that photographic archives [along with] histories unrecorded, opportunities accrete into a deceptively complex musical fragments from his lifelong denied, promises broken, homes polyphony; it is, in other words, a film listening to Miles Davis.” This musical forgotten. This haunting is, in part, that demands careful and repeated accompaniment—the ghosts of songs, an affective mnemonic marked by close analysis. What Akomfrah again—is a signal element of both Miles Davis’ music. Music, to be and his partners have done is to raid a variety of archives in order

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to glean raw materials for a long- murky urban geography (the drab experience of diaspora and playing remix of personal biography, city outside the window); note that interminable transoceanic voyages wide-ranging history, political and both the photograph and vinyl album to and from various “homes.” cultural theory, and race—all intercut are archival means of preserving History is, as usual, chopped and with the affective and significatory ephemeral slivers of pastness in reorganized, with African-European powers of Miles Davis’ music. We mediatic form.6 Put differently, and African-American emigrations are thus tasked with simultaneously they both try to capture ghosts. and diasporic archival images/sounds unraveling a number of different at the fore. Ancient Greek history strands—or, if you will, of carefully Nine Muses is constituted by many and myth nestle beside this archival attending to several competing of the same elements that found footage, which in turn nudges the melodic lines at the same time. Digitopia and The Stuart Hall contemporary shots of mysterious, The film frequently cuts together Project. It is haunted by the ghosts largely obscured spectral figures, archival images, Hall’s voiceover and of the archive, like the latter film, covered head-to-toe in winter-proof interviews, archival sound recordings, but includes a great deal of new attire, including mirrored ski goggles. Davis’ music, and textual graphics, footage of fictional characters silently with no single element necessarily pondering tremendous natural Akomfrah’s characters here are predominating. Stuart Hall makes scenery, like the former film. And, keenly observant of the movements us aware of this intricacy within like most Akomfrah works, Nine the first few minutes of the film, Muses is experimental and complex, as it juxtaposes various visual and and can seem oblique at first. The film makes frequent allusions to sonic elements, each with differing (r i g ht) fi g u r e 3: Homer’s The Odyssey, and is divided affective and significatory valences. Vexed by Time and Distance: The In Figure 2, for instance, personal into sections corresponding to each of the nine muses, as mentioned mysterious émigré stands alone, history (Hall’s photo) forms a façade contemplating diminution, during in front of musical affect (Miles Davis’ above. The primary tension derives from exploration of the émigré’s an ocean voyage record), and both guard the way to th e n i n e m us es (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 2010, s m o ki n g dogs fi lm s), fr am e g r ab .

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“Akomfrah’s work deals with a several of the elements we have been hegemony. Akomfrah creates art granite and limestone cenotaphs. mourning or memorialization of exploring—ghosts, haunting, missing that marks, and then thinks through, Indeed, much of Akomfrah’s output or absent histories and people, the present-absence of blackness explores monumental ideas through interpenetrating temporalities—may in modernity. In this sense, his work the quotidian. As Akomfrah himself an impossible past...” be thought through the notion of is cenotaphic in that it attempts to writes, the films of both Black Audio the cenotaph. The etymology of memorialize—to call attention to— and Smoking Dogs often pursue the word “cenotaph” can be traced bodies that are perpetually absent an “impossible gesture, a desire back to two ancient Greek words in both senses: lack of physical to cease and entrap the ghost… that together mean “empty tomb.” presence and erasure from the to reconcile the facsimile and the Constructed all over the world for dominant archives. I maintain that real, history and myth.”7 These are the last two thousand years or this tendency memorializes bodies monuments to ghosts of the past, and circulations of capital, commerce, to the loquaciousness of the other segregation, and anti-black racism. more, cenotaphs take a variety of that may not be found at all, if they and to specters yet to materialize. peoples, and natural forces. They films examined here. Of course, After all, Mnemosyne, who gets architectural and artistic forms, were known to begin with; thus, sit, look, listen, and feel as these this is not to reduce all Africana her own section in the film, is the but share common purpose in Akomfrah’s work erects cenotaphs Finally, The Last Angel of History rhythms occur; yet we get the culture or subjectivity to a vestigial personification of memory. We are their public commemoration of the to an absent, if not lost, referent. is an experimental DigiBeta video impression that they, like the man in experience with slavery, but to call called to remember—to remember absent or missing dead. Here, this Yet, this cenotaphic tendency is essay (and the only film in this article Digitopia before them, are dwarfed for acknowledgement of the marks unheard voices, to remember matters because much of Akomfrah’s differently inflected in Akomfrah’s produced by Black Audio) with in the face of such heft (Figure 3). and scars that many individuals things that have yet to occur, to work deals with a mourning or work than it is in global monuments. both a fictional narrative arc and and communities bear, explicitly remember even that which we memorialization of an impossible past This is especially the case insofar copious use of creatively treated Alluding to the long transoceanic and implicitly; it is to remind of have never experienced in the talking head interview footage, voyages that initiated portions of in the midst of an uncertain future. as Akomfrah creates audiovisual the persistence of lost or deferred first place, to remember ghosts. That is, Akomfrah’s films frequently works (films, videos, installations) primarily of figures associated with the African diaspora, the mysterious histories, from both enslavement the Afrofuturist canon (if there figures spend much time on or near These “impossible” acts— mine the archive to explore what that are by definition ephemeral and diasporic dispersal, and how so often remains hidden, or that and reflect the aforementioned is such a thing) including George the sea, but they never seem to those forces work in concert remembering the unknown, Clinton, DJ Spooky, Greg Tate, speak. Their embodied voicelessness hearing the unspoken, seeing the which is assumed to be “lost,” reconceptualization of time, contra with the cultural, political, and Octavia Butler, and so on.8 Following is a structuring absence in Nine invisible—pervade Akomfrah’s films. namely, Afro-diasporic lives and the monumental attempts at economic legacies of slavery, histories put under erasure by white permanence and fixity found in the adventures of a time-traveling Muses, particularly in comparison Accordingly, I want to suggest that hero from the future known as the

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“Data Thief,” Last Angel explores come together: Data Thief’s quest, of black people’s potentially computer placed slightly off-center, that black people were the first the fecund theoretical implications the film itself, and the music/figures extraterrestrial origins—while or on multiple screens scattered astronomers and mathematicians in of the music, art, literature, and with which the film is concerned are attempting to construct a future that throughout the frame, forming an the world; hence, the “future-past- criticism surrounding Afrofuturism. all foundationally archaeological; may yet come out of the materials infinite regress of frames. Images present” vortex is transposed to Much of the focus is on the music they are attempts to uncover and presently at hand (Figure 4). and sounds flash and rapidly cut his NASA work. As the descendant and its performance/performativity, reconstruct a history that has either in and out—photographs, artwork, of ancient African astronomers, he “He wanted highlighting music’s conceptual and been written out, or was never The Data Thief’s archaeological archival documents, and scientific describes himself as their “son,” theoretical potency, or, as Shana written originally. The quest is met expedition soon uncovers “Africa,” sketches from African and Afro- returning from space (and the future) Redmond puts it, music is a method, by remixing, by time travelling, by which he reasons is the source diasporic history are rapidly intercut to show what has been accomplished. recognition “a complex system of mean(ing)s and rewriting and reactivating history of “science fiction,” an originary with interview footage and the In the film, all of this is remixed with ends that mediate our relationships through experimentation, through form rooted in the African use sci-fi mélange of the Data Thief’s myriad rapidly intercut images from that black to one another, to space, to our sonic, musical, and audiovisual theory of “drums to cover distance.” Or, quest. The inclusion in Last Angel Ghana—a ghost from the future, histories and historical moment… and praxis. It’s a future-past, with we might say, Last Angel locates of pioneering African-American visiting ghosts from the past, set the origins of science fiction (and, people were [and] to new political modalities.”9 seeds in the present—funk uncut. astronaut Bernard Harris gestures to a soundtrack from outer space. Of course this is idealistic, but, as of course, Afrofuturism) in the toward the Pan-Africanism that In Last Angel, the Data Thief receives Eshun suggests in the film, so are musical-communicative collapsing gained such traction in much of Foundationally, Akomfrah is the first clues about the past: the “black the musics at issue here, including of time and space, or drumming postcolonial Africa and in Civil Rights imagining possible worlds—past, secret technology” of the blues, the the Detroit techno that takes its cues as the attenuation of space-time. movements in America. Harris, an present, and future—in an era that astronomers...” “Mothership Connection” of George from Afrofuturist pioneers Sun Ra, Akomfrah’s formal innovation yet avid science fiction and Parliament desperately needs it. He persistently Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton, and Lee “Scratch” again matches the complexity of his fan, brought along an African returns to the demand for re- and the like. Only in the past, it Perry. These are all “impossible thematic concerns. At times, sounds “composite” flag on his first NASA envisioning and rewriting history seems, can our future-hero find the musics” that “imagine the future” and voices are heavily effected— space flight—a flag which included precisely because whiteness has answers he seeks, and the past he is rather than reflecting the past, or, reverb, phasing, delay—and talking all of the flags of all the countries in spent centuries becoming invisible, revisiting was in fact already living we might say, they imagine a past head interview footage is often Africa at the time of the voyage—as a normalizing itself at unfathomable in the future when he arrived back which may have been—such as shown on a screen-within-the- salute to his Afro-diasporic heritage. cost. As Isaac Julien and Kobena in time. Thus, many of our themes Clinton and Ra’s fantastic invocation screen, displayed on an old personal As Harris says, he wanted recognition Mercer contend (with nods to Stuart

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Hall and Gayatri Spivak) this process that audiences think—but they are threshold of consciousness for days proceeds through “the epistemic also visceral, presenting audiovisual after contact. They are very much like violence that has, historically, material that is immediately ghosts, then, persistently challenging disavowed difference in Western affective. Like a chill down the the conventional and calling us to discourses.”10 So, these monuments spine, Akomfrah’s films move us hear, see, and otherwise sense the to ghosts obviously work upon directly while leaving behind vexing potentially transformative possibilities whiteness as well—exorcising it and questions—thoughts lingering on the of existence as best we can. drawing it out into the light, where it can be properly seen. Indeed, as blackness hovers throughout the BAFC and Akomfrah’s work, it is variously mobilized to recall, rethink, recreate; to tear down and build up again; to critique; to question; and to dream. In their oblique, even opaque (re)configurations of sounds and images, these films insist upon deliberate reflection—they demand

1 Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar, eds., The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art of the Black Audio Film Collective 1982–1998 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007). 2 Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination, New ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 8. 3 Ibid., 7–8. 4 “Digitopia,” Smoking Dogs Films, http://www.smokingdogsfilms.com/filmDigit.htm. (r i g ht) fi g u r e 4: 5 Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (London: Quartet, 1998), -004. Eshun’s idiosyncratic pagination in this book indicates that page -004 The Data Thief’s Remix: “Surfing across the should be understood as the fourth page of his introduction. internet of black culture, breaking in…and 6 Both Fred Moten and Alexander Weheliye produce innovative theorizations of blackness and “pastness in mediatic form” in their respective texts. See Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003) and Alexander G. Weheliye, Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity stealing fragments” (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). th e l a st an g el o f h isto ry 7 John Akomfrah, “Digitopia and the Spectres of Diaspora,” Journal of Media Practice 11, no. 1 (2010): 27. (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 1995, 8 Kara Keeling suggests that the film is, in fact, engaging in the process of creating an Afrofuturist canon. At this point, the film would also then be part of such a canon. Kara Keeling, “Introduction to The Last Angel of History” (Atlanta: BAFC Film and Speakers Series, Georgia State University, October 3, 2014). b l ack au dio fi lm co llec tive), fr am e g r ab . 9 Shana L. Redmond, Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 1. 10 Isaac Julien and Kobena Mercer, “De Margin and De Centre,” in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 1996), 456.

26 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 27 t wi li g ht cit y (di r ec ted by r eece au g u iste, 1989, b l ack au dio fi lm co llec tive), fr am e g r ab o f sti ll by roti m i fan i k ayo d e. “When one of your hands touches self and the body as object in the to be present in the records, in creative production where absences the other, something peculiar world, and the site where desire the galleries, and in the media. can be generative and loss can happens: You become aware of the to move, and for artists to make, be exposed. The centrality of the Inside and Out: strange ambivalence that makes meets its external constraints. Artists It becomes possible to consider how body, both within the record and your body different from all other Donald Rodney and Keith Piper— these artists’ formal decisions of as a record, oscillates between the The Open Hand in things. Your hand is an object in the who along with Eddie Chambers scale, medium, and style worked with body experienced from within and world, but it is also something you and Claudette Johnson organized content to demand a hypervisible the exterior image of the body. Two experience from within. And the the Blk Art Group in Britain in the presence in order to critique the later works from Donald Rodney and the Work of Donald hand you touch is also both an object 1980s—created images that produced paradoxical conditions of social, Keith Piper, I will argue, articulate and a feeling, sensing part of your a tension with external constraints political, and artistic constraint that the unique position of the fold as embodied self. The touched thing of social and political discrimination was denied expression. As outlined articulated by Merleau-Ponty and Rodney and Keith Piper is also touching.” Daniel Birnbaum that dominated the public sphere, by Jean Fisher in her introduction elaborated by Domieta Torlasco. Both on the exhibition Lygia Clark: The including city streets, neighborhoods, to the Living Archive conference works manage to suspend a moment in Shades of Black, reimagining Abandonment of Art, 1948-19881 art schools, and the art world. The between hypervisiblity and invisibility, production of artwork, exhibitions, presence across temporal distinctions as well as the moment of touching and conferences such as the National has become a critical methodology and being the touched thing. for both artists and art historians Kristin Juarez The outstretched hand is a gesture Black Art Convention in 1982, and later the Living Archive in 1997, to account for the processes of For Donald Rodney and Keith that can be located in the everyday, erasure and loss. This, she argues, Piper, the body becomes a site the ritual, the performance, and the suggest that cultural production was for these artists not only a has resulted in a historiography that for archivization of—as Torlasco sculpture. As a gesture of exchange, is deeply invested in the voices of posits—memory and creation, agency, and arrest in the work of question of visibility in the art artists, diverging memories, and translation and invention.3 By 1997 art, it becomes a site of poetic world, but also about making visible conflicting trajectories.2 For many the two artists, who both began resonance. Evoking Merleau-Ponty, the processes by which images deny depth of black subjectivity, artists that began making work in the as painters, were working across Daniel Birnbaum describes the hand 1980s in Britain, the archive provided artistic mediums that resulted in as the threshold for the embodied allowing only shallow surfaces of blackness, as a signifier of difference, a site for critical examination and multimedia installations. Tracing the

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prevalence of art mediums across by Frida Kahlo’s ability to use her practice. This practice can be seen found, both Rodney and Piper’s the 1980s, Kobena Mercer notes that crippled body as a metaphor for a most vividly in the works of the hands are mediated through a a decade that began with painting broken political system. Piper’s early Black Audio Film Collective, Donald hybrid use of artistic mediums. soon saw the rise of independent paintings have been contextualized Rodney, and Keith Piper. As artists filmmakers working in film and video, by the aesthetic sensibilities of captivated by aesthetics as well There are several effects to be analyzed: how the artists use the as well as photography.4 Coming Robert Rauschenberg. Filmmakers of as the history of form and/as the out of art schools, artists were both the Black Audio Film Collective very political, the way in which content image to produce and record the addressing the formal specificity deliberately engaged in renegotiating is delivered cannot be overlooked. way the experiencing body gives of their selected medium and its the language of filmmaking, including way to being the art object; how history. In 3 Songs of Pain, Light and nonlinear narrative structures, In 1997, Donald Rodney produced the images subvert the paradoxical Time (1995)—a film made with the experimentation with sound, as the photograph In the House Of My position of the black hypervisibility Black Audio Film Collective—Rodney well as color. Photographers such Father and Keith Piper produced and invisibility through the use of the notes that in addition to his personal as Joy Gregory, Ingrid Pollard, Hand and Remains for his interactive fold; the significance of technology relationship with Keith Piper, his and Rotimi Fani-Kayode were as CD-Rom, Relocating the Remains. (art medium) as it mediates a radical artistic radicalization was inspired Mercer states—challenging the Both works feature the artist’s own disorientation of the body schema. norms of documentary realism. outstretched hand in a gesture of Rodney’s use of photography to offering. As an image of resistance, document a sculpture and his body By the 1990s, the boundaries the open hand counters the closed (but also a place and memory), between mediums were no longer fist of black power with a radical and Piper’s digital programming applicable. Prompted in large part openness. For Donald Rodney and that document his artwork and (r i g ht) fi g u r e 1: by collaboration, conversations, Keith Piper, the images of their his body (and also bodies under Donald Rodney, In the House of My Father, and exposure taking place between open hands act as the investigative surveillance and enslaved bodies) 1996-7. Photograph, color, on paper black artists, a fluidity emerges by surfaces at the threshold of interiority illustrate a deliberate mediation in mounted onto aluminum, 1220 x 1530 mm, which media, archive, and historical and exteriority of the body. Utilizing which one artwork is understood Tate Britain, London (work © The Estate and contemporaneous art images the skin as the archive where visual through another. Their images, in of Donald Rodney), courtesy of the estate get incorporated into a multi-media and avisual impressions can be which their bodies are both centrally of Donald Rodney.

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present but distinctly absent, not honor the limits between process.6 As memories are hidden archiving technology, the photograph the event, there is within the image a destabilize the proprioception interiority and exteriority, but within and exposed as a house, the produces as much as it records the secret archive that is “…never located of the experiencing body as an rather radically folds them into unstable sculpture throws into crisis event.10 In the image, the sculpture entirely on the inside or outside, act of resistance, in which black one another. As Jennifer Barker Derrida’s emphasis on the archive as sits in Rodney’s hand, visualizing the never entirely visible or invisible.”13 subjects are not denied interiority explains, “As the edge between a permanent dwelling that shelters, moment where Rodney is both the Unspoken memory, as Lippit but rather are able to deliberately the body and the world, then, which is also the expression of a touching subject and the touched describes, belongs to the avisual, the withhold complete legibility. the skin functions always as principle of authority.7 Domietta thing. For Lippit, self-awareness anarchive that captures the unsayable “the sculpture both a covering and uncovering, Torlasco elaborates, “Lineage, of radical exteriority, in which his or unarchivable.14 Torlasco describes In Donald Rodney’s photograph In because of its simultaneous inheritance, transmission, according interiority has been brought to the avisuality, or the unrepresentable, the House of My Father, the artist’s proximity to the public world to family or state law—the site that surface, allows the looking subject as a rearrangement of perception outstretched hand holds the fragile transforms and to the secretive inner body.”5 the archive needs to realize itself to disappear.11 As such, the that maintains an obscurity even sculpture of a house made of his Here the secretive inner body as such is inextricably physical and photograph documents a suspended as images make visible. Borrowing own skin (Figure 1). The photograph the physical is the site of his memories as symbolic.”8 As an impermanent site state of disappearance, which from Merleau-Ponty’s The Visible and was taken from his hospital bed, well as the sickle cell anemia. marking the passing of his father allows for what Torlasco identifies the Invisible, she explains, “the fold loss of his and is not itself the artwork, but is His skin becomes the threshold the year before, the current loss of as the possibility of “hybrid is yet another name for the chiasm documenting the sculpture titled where both become visible. his skin, and the doubt his illness formations at the threshold of the perception, the intertwining of seeing My Mother, My Father, My Sister, My casts on his future, the photograph visible world.”12 Rodney’s hybrid and being seen, touching and being skin into a Brother. The sculpture transforms As an archive, the sculpture challenges the politically problematic subjectivity reorders his bodily touched—the cipher of reversibility, the physical loss of his skin into a made of his skin makes the “house arrest” that Derrida identifies schema as a fold, where he is both a coiling or doubling back that is in medium, and that production into inner secretive body available as a condition for the archive.9 touching and the touched thing. principle asymmetrical and always medium...” a site of mourning. Rodney uses to the public. His skin becomes unfinished.”15 This is where Rodney’s his skin, which he lost following a a site where the limits of the Mediating the sculpture, the The skin he holds is all surface, gesture becomes one of resistance. surgery, in order to recall a prior representable are expressed as photograph provides the indexical visualizing a radical exteriority by hospital stay that prohibited him what Akira Lippit defines as the trace of both Rodney’s presence obfuscating interiority without As a political body, he rejects the from seeing his father before he avisuality of an archive, or the and the absence he is expressing. denying it. While the photograph always-already-ness assigned to passed away. The sculpture does externalization of an internal According to Derrida, as the acts as an archive, making visible black British subjects. As the site

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where blackness is visualized, the all Black people, who are frequently Without the privilege of skin’s ability to cover and uncover seen as a cancer within white interiority, the home becomes the secret inner body has been society.”18 The collectivizing move a site of folding, providing the historically mobilized to evidence that Rodney performs within his body opportunity for a multiplication of the invisible qualities of race visible. can further an examination of the narratives that includes constraint, It is the site of overdetermination sculpture My Mother, My Father, My displacement, and urban and where folding—as Alessandra Sister, My Brother. Because the skin Raengo asserts—has been employed has become both the archive and the to turn subjectivity inside out, fold, the sculpture becomes a site of refusing black bodies of interiority.16 reversibility, acting as a site of the Further, the medium of photography public’s invisibility, the effects of a (lef t) fi g u r e 2: has been utilized for the purposes public disease. Akira Lippit describes of indexing racial difference, using the slippage between skin and Keith Piper, Cover image for exhibition its technology as way to prove the archive as, “A place at once interior catalogue Relocating the Remains, 1997, indisputable visibility of race.17 and exposed, imaginary and material: 220 x 310mm. Institute of International a public interiority and secret Visual Arts, London (work © Keith Piper, Sickle cell anemia, as Eddie exteriority.”19 As Chambers noted in Institute of International Visual Arts), Chambers has noted, has come to his lecture “Visualizing the Struggle courtesy of the artist, Institute of signify blackness because black of Black Britain” for black people International Visual Arts. people are the primary population the home did not necessarily mean affected by it. Rodney had attempted refuge, it was a site that was both (r i g ht) fi g u r e 3: to use his “diseased” blood as part of private and public as police could Keith Piper, Still from Hand and the artwork Visceral Canker (1990). raid at their discretion. For many, Remains project on Relocating the Rodney described the use of his homes were not chosen, but rather Remains CD-Rom, 1997 (work © Keith blood saying, “The blood serves as places where people were “put.”20 an analogue for all Black blood, or Piper), courtesy of the artist, Institute of International Visual Arts.

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deterioration. In 1987, Piper and and reconstruct images of blackness. rearranges the order of perception.24 in the catalogue, the abstracted are an image of the artist’s face, media…In every manifestation, Rodney collaborated on Next Turn of Suggesting new media art as both Piper then uses the possibilities background is replaced by an image partially obscured by the hand, and hypermediacy makes us aware of the the Screw, a mural painted directly on archive and fold, Torlasco elaborates, of new media to rearrange his that combines loose sketches of an image of a profile etched onto medium or media and (in sometimes the gallery’s wall that commemorated “Here memory comes into being as perceiving and perceived body. human bodies, handwriting, and a it recalling his work, Seven Stories subtle or obvious ways) reminds the black men and women who had a folding of dimensions that cannot world map that are recognizable as from Permanent Revolution (1997). us of our desire for immediacy.”25 In Hand and Remains, Piper’s open been killed in their homes. As an act be simplified or translated into one such but also indiscernible (Figure As a windowed body, his body hand holds a digitally rendered In the image, his hand and face are of resistance—following the silence another without residue: the seen 3). The shadow the hand casts parts function independently sphere made up of Piper’s 1982 both present yet detached from of public officials acknowledging and the unseen, the visible and emphasizes the illusion of depth, and of one another, allowing him to painting Black Assassin Saints. The each other and any other body part. the death of fourteen young people the invisible, the sensible and the suspended between the background simultaneously be the touching discoloration of the hand’s fingertips While the digital construction does in a house fire—civil uprisings intelligible, the future and the past— and the hand are various “stones.” subject and the touched thing. As and palm produce the effect that not seek an illusory trompe l’oeil made the invisibility of mourning it is such an excess of openness part of the remains, the title suggests the hand is pressed directly against There is one other difference effect, the shadow the hand casts and of injustice hypervisible.21 with respect to its own constitution that his head and the other stones the surface of the image. A few between the two versions of Hand emphasizes the physical presence that the heretical archive displays are to be discarded, so the still image versions of this image have been and Remains. The second image, of the hand within the artifice. Here, Central to the hypervisible and and affirms against the violence suspends the disappearance of the circulated online and two are in the which also has the map as a hypermediacy becomes a particularly invisible paradox is the way of definition and the inevitability looking subject. As a result, the image technology mediates the meaning exhibition catalogue, Relocating background, has an additional stone fruitful concept to describe the of forgetting.”23 New-media art depicts a body that is no longer the Remains. As the cover for his that has an image of a black man’s possibilities made available in Hand and immediacy of blackness. As practices as heretical archive confined to its physical limits, and exhibition catalogue, the background face with the word “unclassified” and Remains. Bolter and Grusin mentioned earlier, Derrida believed performs a radical exteriority by as a fold prompts a rearrangement is an abstracted field of blue and written across the forehead. The posit, “Where immediacy suggests a that archivization produces the event means of its self-awareness, and does of the order of perception. The aqua, referencing simultaneously image is manipulated in such a unified visual space, contemporary as much as it records the event. As not make its mediation invisible but arrangement and unclear presence the ocean, the sky, and a nebulous way that it is hard to distinguish hypermediacy offers a heterogeneous such, he continues archivization of hypervisible. Remediation—which of these objects that exist in a cyberspace (Figure 2). The wisps who the person is and gives him space, in which representation is an event is not apolitical, rather, Bolter and Grusin define as the way heterogeneous space, rather than a of color covering the bottom of an anonymity that could either conceived of not as window on to “This is also our political experience in which new media is expressed flat one, suggest that these images his hand suggest that the hand protect the individual or generalize the world, but rather as ‘windowed’ of the so-called news media.”22 The by refashioning of old media— can move fluidly within it and is not in front of, but within the him as “all” black men. The other itself—with windows that open appropriation of the news-media cannot erase the latter, but instead have meanings and relationships stones present in both versions to other representations or other event is central to Keith Piper’s ambiguous matter. In the final image that are deliberately shrouded. practice as a means to deconstruct

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As part of the larger project recur; speech, vision and touch are source in obscurity.”27 Refusing to from physical to virtual space. The in specific histories of embodiment.”31 Relocating the Remains that tangible registers that underpin his accept the historical ways in which remains of objects, activities and ideas By creating images that do not accompanied an exhibition catalogue narratives of difference, subjugation these figures have been denied which at one time exclusively occupied always suppose a denied interiority, for his mid-career retrospective, the and resistance; the complexities interiority, Piper’s interventions reveal the cold space of galleries and other Piper encourages viewers to see CD-Rom hosts the records of Piper’s of desire, of pain and longing are the ways in which they were made places designated for the display of art, themselves seeing as a way to digital projects including video works, inscribed across the somatic field.”26 to be both hypervisible and invisible, have become disembodied, recoded better understand the depth of sound recordings, and research In addition to the interactive projects while reinscribing their position as into digital form. At points these the figures imaged as surface. images. Throughout the visual on the CD-Rom, Piper has included one of deliberate opacity, demanding remains are compacted onto the CD- Donald Rodney and Keith Piper material, the outstretched hand arises an archive of modes of surveillance the right to not be understood.28 As Rom, at others they are set adrift onto as a motif through his work as a site on black men, ethnographic images a result, Piper creates what Torlasco the virtual expanses of the Internet.30 use their own bodies as an act of of offering in works such as as a site for both undiscovered terms the heretical archive, one resistance occurring between the By emphasizing the fluid mobility A Ship Called Jesus (1991), where narratives as well as the historical that “can help us imagine an unruly, hypervisibility and the invisibility of ideas, process, and objects that hands hold coins before a slave ship construction of racial difference as porous, incoherent legacy, one that of blackness in the public sphere. disperse and converge across virtual grounded by water and topped by evidenced in the photographed body. appropriates a certain history rather By performing the fold in which space and physical spaces, Piper the church arch, and The Fire Next than attempting to negate it.”29 reinforces the presence of the avisual Time (1991), where three video works As a multi-media archive that resists in the visible. Like Rodney, the works are projected onto a slide image of the inevitability of forgetting, Hand Further denying the ability to know also fold public interiority and private an open hand (Figure 4). Printed and Remains also includes an archive all of these bodies, Relocating of his body, his past work, and effort the Remains is dispersed across exteriority. As Jennifer Gonzalez on the CR-Rom, two cupped hands (r i g ht) fi g u r e 4: furthered throughout the content an exhibition space, a catalogue, writes, “For Piper, visual images appear to be cradling the disc itself. Keith Piper, The Fire Next Time, 1991, of the CD-Rom. By hypermediating CD-Rom, and an Internet are not, or not only, always already In the publication foreword, Gilane Dimensions Variable, Exhibition view corrupted signs participating in the Tawadros and David Chandler (the these bodies, Rodney allows a figure site. About this dispersion in spectacle that is capitalism; they from A Ship Called Jesus, Ikon Gallery, Director and Projects Manager) to exhibit a radical exteriority that cyberspace, Piper states, can also be the site for significant Birmingham, England (work © Keith explain, “In the past his work has is irreducible to itself, as Torlasco In the case of this project, the act of identifications, particularly for those Piper), courtesy of the artist, Institute consistently invoked the body and claims, acting as “a light which, ‘relocation’ takes on multiple meanings. subjects who are interpellated by of International Visual Arts. its sensory domain: eyes and hands illuminating the rest, remains at its In a literal sense, the relocation becomes them and can recognize themselves

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6 Akira Mizuta Lippit, Atomic Light, 1 edition (Minneapolis: Univ of Minnesota Press, 2005), 57. the touching subject become the In In the Break: The Aesthetics of insights amplify the radicalism 7 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz, 1 edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 2. touched object, they both work to the Black Radical Tradition Fred of Rodney and Piper’s works. 8 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, 1. expose the limits of visibility from Moten indicates, “Constraint, 9 Ibid. within the inner secret body, and mobility, and displacement are, Stemming from Rodney’s 10 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, 17. 11 Lippit, Atomic Light, 46. body politic. Gonzalez writes, “Race therefore, conditions of possibility deteriorating health and the decay of the post-industrial city of Piper’s 12 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, xv. serves as an aspect of secrecy in the of the avant-garde. Deterioration 13 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, 10. logic of publicity, but as an already is crucial to the avant-garde, as childhood, both artists sought to 14 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, 11. publicly constructed discourse, its well: as a certain aesthetics, as express how a constraining police 15 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, xvii. 16 Alessandra Raengo, On the Sleeve of the Visual: Race as Face Value (Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth, 2013), 43. secrets are plainly evident. This is an effect of disinvestment, as a force, attempts to displace their British identity, and the suppressions 17 Jennifer Gonzalez, “Morphologies: Race as Visual Technology” in Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (New York: International Center of Photography, its fundamental contradiction.”32 psychic condition: the decay of 2003), 341. Rodney and Piper each perform form and the internal and external of public demonstrations affected 18 Eddie Chambers, Donald Rodney: Doublethink, ed. Richard Hylton (London: Autograph, 2003), 33. the individual body and the body 19 Lippit, Atomic Light, 9. this contradiction at the level of environment of regenerative 20 Eddie Chambers, “Visualizing the Struggle of Black Britain” (lecture, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA, September 27, 2014). the body through the seemingly aesthetic production: turning, politic.34 By using their bodies to express the invagination, or folding 21 In 1981 and 1985, cities around Britain experienced the uprisings or riots that responded largely to racial injustice. small gesture of the open hand. vanishing, enclosing, invaginating.”33 22 Derrida, Archive Fever 17. While the image appears to be Moten’s suggestion articulates the that Moten identifies, Piper and 23 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, xvii. rooted in the individual body, I have processes by which the threshold Rodney produce hybrid forms 24 Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media, 1st edition (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2000), 6. of self-reflexivity proposing new 25 Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation, 35. argued that in both works enfold of the outside world and the inner 26 Gilane Tawadros and David Chandler, foreword to Keith Piper: Relocating the Remains by Kobena Mercer (London: Institute of International Visual Arts, 1997), 5. arrangements of perception of private and public, expressing the body produce new aesthetic forms. 27 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, xvii. conditions of constraint for black Further, by recognizing the fold as blackness, including its mediation 28 In Kara Keeling lecture “Errantry and Imagination in Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi,” she leveraged Eduoard Glissant’s concept of opacity as a position of resistance to reductive and resistance, in the public sphere. concept of the Other. (lecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, October 2, 2014). people in their physical environment. a regenerative aesthetic, Moten’s 29 Torlasco, The Heretical Archive, xv. 30 Keith Piper, “Relocating the Remains (A nomad leaves few traces),” Invia, http://www.iniva.org/piper/RRNotes.html 31 Jennifer González, “The Face and the Public: Race, Secrecy, and Digital Art Practice,” Camera Obscura 24, no. 1 70 (January 1, 2009): 55. 32 Jennifer González, “The Face and the Public,” 59. 33 Fred Moten, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 40. 34 Mercer, “Art Histories and Culture’s Geographies: 1979–1985” in Relocating the Remains, 20.

1 Daniel Birnbaum, “Lygia Clark Museum of Modern Art, New York,” Artforum 53, no.2 (October 2014): 274. 2 Jean Fisher, “Dialogues” in David Bailey, Ian Baucom, and Sonia Boyce, Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain (Durham: Duke University Press Books), 169. 3 Domietta Torlasco, The Heretical Archive: Digital Memory at the End of Film (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), xi. 4 Kobena Mercer, “Iconography after Identity,” in Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain (Durham: Duke University Press Books) 49. 5 Jennifer M. Barker, The Tactile Eye: Touch and the Cinematic Experience, First Trade Paperback edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 28.

42 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 43 pau l k lee. an g elus n ov us , 1920, oi l an d waterco lo r o n paper , 31.8 x 24.2cm . is r ael m us eu m , j erusalem (co u rtesy o f cr e ative co m m o n s). What is the nature of history in John There are two important aspects to stay—presumably in the present painting, Akomfrah considers the Mothership Connection. Following Akomfrah’s 1995 documentary, The to this thesis that are relevant to (or perhaps even return to the story of the historical figure and this clue, the Data Thief, “[Surfs] Last Angel of History? One way to understanding the concept of history past)—to help mend the catastrophe blues legend, Robert Johnson. In across the internet of black culture, Akomfrah’s answer this question is to begin with in Akomfrah’s film: the location of before his feet. However, historical the very beginning of the film, the breaking into the vaults, breaking into the title. The Last Angel of History the storm and the angel’s desire materialism’s sense of history is narrator recites the famous story the rooms, and stealing fragments, Angel of is surely a reference to Walter to stay. Benjamin explains that oriented towards the future. That is of how Johnson learned to play the fragments from cyber-culture, Benjamin’s famous meditation on the storm’s origin is Paradise. In to say, each distinct historical event blues: “Robert Johnson sold his techno-culture, narrative-culture.”8 Paul Klee’s 1920 painting, Angelus Abrahamic religious traditions, builds on another toward a logical soul to the devil at the crossroads History Novus, in his own “Theses on the Paradise is the subject of various end based on material progress. in the Deep South. He sold his Armed with a special set of Philosophy of History.” In the ninth interpretations. Paradise can refer Critical of this position, Benjamin soul and in return he was given sunglasses and a black box, this thesis of this text, Benjamin does to the mythic Garden of Eden (from describes the past in this painting the secret of a black technology, character is a time-traveler. The a close reading of Klee’s painting which humans fell from grace), the as a pile of debris that continues a black secret technology that we documentary follows the Data Thief as he discovers different fragments in order to make a critique of future state of the universe that to grow skyward.5 Unable to fight know to be now as the blues.”6 Karl Marx’s historical materialism. will eventually be restored, the the storm, the angel is forced in of black cultural productions Clinton Fluker Benjamin discerns that the image afterlife (heaven), or a combination a temporal direction against his Using this story as inspiration, throughout history in the form Akomfrah creates another character of video footage, pictures, and depicts an angel looking toward of the three.3 Usually depicted as a will for the sake of progress. a catastrophic past: “Where we peaceful place, Benjamin portrays in Johnson’s image he calls the Data interviews with artists and critics. perceive a chain of events, he sees Paradise as the source of a violent Thief. Two hundred years into the Several of these interviewees include one single catastrophe which keeps storm that ferociously propels the II future, the Data Thief is told a story: Juan Atkins, John Corbett, Derrick piling wreckage upon wreckage and angel of history’s wings toward “If you can find the crossroads…you’ll May, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, DJ find fragments, techno-fossils, and Spooky, Kodwo Eshun, Samuel hurls it in front of his feet.”1 The the future: “a storm is blowing in In the narrative of The Last Angel angel of history desires to stay and Paradise; it has got caught in his of History, Akomfrah deals head on if you can put those elements, those Delany, Octavia Butler, and George help mend this catastrophe, but his wings with such violence that the with the notion of history by using fragments together, you’ll find the Clinton. Eventually, The Mothership code. Crack that code, and you’ll Connection leads the Data Thief wings are caught in a storm that angel can no longer close them.”4 a similar mechanism employed propels him toward the future: “This by Benjamin in “Theses.” Rather have the keys to your future.”7 Before to twentieth-century Africa. The angel of history’s back is turned venturing on his journey to find the storm is what we call progress.”2 than focusing on a character in a toward the future because he wants crossroads, he is given a clue: The According to the narrator, when the Data Thief reaches Africa, he

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becomes the last angel of history. History, Clinton states: “On [this] attempts to situate blackness Up),” acting as an intergalactic DJ, Similar to Benjamin’s angel, record, I had to find another place in odd places, Parliament also Lollipop Man informs the citizens Akomfrah’s angel is trapped. Though that we hadn’t perceived black became known for their jarring of Earth that they are listening to a the Data Thief wants to return to his people to be, and that was on a live performances and eclectic broadcast from the Mothership on a own time in the future, his search spaceship. So, I pictured him in there outfits. In one interview for The frequency he calls W-E-F-U-N-K: for Johnson’s crossroads has led leaning like it was a Cadillac. You Last Angel of History, techno him back in time to 20th century know, slidin’ through space, chillin’... artist Derrick May states: Welcome to station WEFUNK, better known as We-Funk Africa where he will forever be stuck coming from the planet Sirius.”10 I went to go see a concert when I was Or deeper still, the Mothership Connection. in time and space.9 The reason the Data Thief is trapped in this period In addition to the imagery provided a little kid… I’ll never forget this man Home of the extraterrestrial brothers, is best understood through an on the album cover, the music coming out of the top of the roof on a Dealers of funky music. analysis of how Akomfrah uses both situates blackness in outer space cable, dressed in a diaper and big white P.Funk, uncut funk, The Bomb.12 through the use of electronic voice platform boots, playing a guitar and called The Mothership Connection and the Integral to interpreting Mothership distortions and musical instruments himself Starchild. And then this other crossroads throughout the narrative. Connection is Clinton’s notion of such as Bootsy Collins’ famous dude comes out of a so-called spaceship Funk. According to Kodwo Eshun, an star-shaped electric guitar. In other that lands out of the center of the stage.11 acclaimed music and Afrofuturism III The album tells the story of the critic, Funk is a healing substance. In arrival of Starchild, an alien from his book, More Brilliant than the Sun: Released in 1975, Mothership another planet, who has arrived in Adventures in Sonic Fiction, Eshun Connection is Parliament’s 4th studio a Mothership (spaceship) to bring notes that Parliament’s very first album. The album cover features a (lef t) fi g u r e 1: the people of Earth the Funk. This album was called Osmium, the world’s photo of Parliament’s bandleader, The Data Thief storyline is narrated by several most pungent metal: “Funkadelia… George Clinton, sitting in a spaceship th e l a st an g el o f h isto ry different characters including the invades through the nostrils and seeps near an unidentified planet. When (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 1995, Lollipop Man. On the album’s first through the nerves, setting inhalation asked about this album cover in an b l ack au dio fi lm co llec tive), fr am e g r ab . track, “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked at war with the body. You breathe in interview from The Last Angel of

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the purification of the universe.”13 this fact by hitting them with pure, which Funk is dispersed to the search for the crossroads leads Lollipop Man states “P-Funk”: unadulterated Funk. Luckily, Funk is citizens of Earth, and Funk itself is to Africa while aboard Clinton’s also something that is easy to obtain. the ancient source of good vibes and Mothership. However, it is still a If you got faults, defects or shortcomings, All a person needs to do is listen Earth’s life force, The Mothership quandary as to why Akomfrah’s You know, like arthritis, rheumatism to the Funky music performed by Connection represents a return to angel gets stuck there. or migraines, Starchild and his crew: “Put a glide in origins: “The Mothership Connection Whatever part of your body it is, your stride and a dip in your hip and is the link between Africa as a lost I want you to lay it on your radio, come on up to the Mothership.”16 continent in the past and Africa let the vibes flow through. IV as an Alien Future.”18 This logic is Funk not only moves, it Also in “Mothership Connection further supported by the name of In Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American can re-move, dig?14 (Star Child),” Starchild welcomes the album and the connection that is Literature: A Vernacular Theory, the people of Earth to “good times” forged between the people of Earth In addition to its healing properties, Houston Baker discusses the idea of on the Mothership. He tells the and the spaceship. The “Mother” Starchild describes the Funk as a the crossroads in blues and African- listeners that his arrival, itself, is ship Connection is a metaphorical substance that is so ancient, it is American culture. Baker’s attempt the Mothership Connection. Eshun allusion to the middle passage and likely that the citizens of Earth have at developing a black vernacular states: “The Mothership Connection a return to Africa. Likewise, it is simply forgotten how powerful it theory through a blues aesthetic is Clinton’s symbol for what happens no surprise that the Data Thief’s can be: “Face it, even your memory to Funk when you pass it through will help shed light on why the Data banks have forgotten this funk.”15 As the studio and when it becomes Thief finds himself trapped. Baker referenced in the song “Mothership astro, or it becomes space, when says of the crossroads, “the railway Connection (Star Child),” Funk is as it becomes extraterrestrial.”17 juncture is marked by transience. Its ancient as the Egyptian pyramids inhabitants are always travelers—a (r i g ht) fi g u r e 2: that the Parliament crew has returned As Starchild’s voice travels through multifarious assembly in transit.”19 to claim. In fact, the secret to Funk, the radio waves, a connection Black Box and Sunglasses Baker asserts that blues singers, Earth’s regenerating life force, is in between the citizens of Earth and th e l a st an g el o f h isto ry like Robert Johnson, are always the pyramids. All Starchild wants to the UFO is forged. If the voice of (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 1995, situated at a crossroads because it do is remind the citizens of Earth of Starchild is the medium through b l ack au dio fi lm co llec tive), fr am e g r ab . is only at this sight of fluidity that

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“He argues that when blues artists sing [...] they perform an action that is similar to the black hole...”

(lef t) fi g u r e 3: a blues singer finds the power to operates, Baker uses the scientific In scientific circles, what lies on Mothership Connection Album Cover transform “experiences of a durative concept of the black hole. In the the other side of a black hole is th e l a st an g el o f h isto ry (unceasingly oppressive) landscape text, the black hole functions as a unknown, but there is conjecture (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 1995, into the energies of rhythmic prime metaphor for how he believes that they may be portals to other b l ack au dio fi lm co llec tive), fr am e g r ab . song.”20 In this way, Baker describes the crossroads transforms time and universes altered by the bending a concept of the crossroads where space. A black hole is a star with of the space-time continuum.21 the rules and principles of the world gravity so dense that it consumes all This is the aspect of the black hole that usually constrict or oppress a light that comes into contact with it. that Baker finds so interesting. He person no longer apply. By singing Occasionally, because the amount of argues that when blues artists sing at the crossroads, the blues singer energy concentrated inside a black or when writers such as Richard and his kin, such as the Data Thief, hole is so powerful, it pulls other Wright employ a blues vernacular in experience a form of liberation stars and planets into its orbit. If a their work, they perform an action through artistic expression. star were to get too close to a black that is similar to the black hole: hole, it would be consumed after In an attempt to explain how his crossing the event horizon and enter The symbolic content of Afro-American philosophy of a blues aesthetic a field where time and space bends. expressive culture can thus be formulated

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in terms of the black hole conceived This realization at the end of The “… timelessness and spacelessness… allow themselves to become vessels as a subcultural…region in which a Last Angel of History, at first glance, outside of history…characterized by whereby the blues are released dominant, white culture’s representations appears contradictory. If the Data [the] receipt of ancestral wisdom.”25 into the world to take on forms are squeezed to zero volume, Thief stays tuned to the Mothership During this phase, Baker argues that and rhythms that can no longer producing a new expressive order.22 and locates the crossroads, he an ahistorical “sense of the black be contained by the normative is supposed to find the key to self’s historicity” is achieved.26 conventions of the day, such as the In The Last Angel of History, the the future! So why is he stuck in notion of linear history. Akomfrah narrator states that Robert Johnson twentieth-century Africa? Baker During the third stage, the initiate further develops this connection received a secret black technology argues that once a person enters the is reintegrated into the society to the crossroads when a frame at the crossroads. He goes on to black hole (or the crossroads), they from which they came, but they are featuring the Data Thief’s sunglasses explain that this black technology are utterly transformed. He likens totally and irreversibly transformed and black box (time-traveling tools) was the blues and that, “the blues entering the black hole to going because that person has now is followed by a frame of a nail and begat jazz, the blues begat soul, the through rites of passage. When a been made whole through their a piece of wood. This juxtaposition blues begat hip-hop, the blues begat black person enters the crossroads, interaction with ancestral wisdom: shows how the nail and the wood, R&B.”23 Within the film’s narrative, they go through three rites. The first perceived analog instruments, are we follow the lineage of Robert The expressive community at the center stage “involves the black person’s of the black hole is always conceived actually time-traveling apparatuses Johnson 200 years into the future, separation from a dominant, white that have aided black people in their where Akomfrah introduces the Data as ‘marginal’ because its members society.”24 In the second stage, efforts to move fluidly in and out of Thief. Just as in Baker’s text, the Data never ‘return’ to the affective and the black person feels a sense of perceptual structures of an old white conceptions of rigid, linear historical Thief is drawn toward the crossroads frameworks for generations. because he wishes to be free of his dispensation. In actuality, the expressive own time. However, as he traces community of the black (w)hole…is the center of a new order of existence.27 The Mothership Connection back V to Africa, back to the crossroads, That is to say, the black (w)hole is (lef t) fi g u r e 4: he realizes that he can never a space marked by fluid radicalism. Nail and Wood I argue that the manner in which return to where he came from. Black people at the crossroads th e l a st an g el o f h isto ry Akomfrah employs the concept of (di r ec ted by j o h n ako m fr ah , 1995, b l ack au dio fi lm co llec tive), fr am e g r ab .

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voiceover is accompanied by images of Africa from the early to the mid twentieth-century. In the 37th minute, the narrator states that this is the Data Thief’s last visit to Africa, history in this film resonates quite past and the present conditions of that they did before. The Data Thief and the voiceover is accompanied by what is presumably video of Africa during the 1990’s, the time the film was produced. Precisely where in twentieth-century Africa the Data well with Benjamin because The actual people are easily overlooked. has returned via The Mothership Thief gets stuck is unclear. Last Angel of History also attempts Connection to an Africa that is both 10 Ibid. to make a critique of historical In similar fashion, Akomfrah’s angel an ancient past and an alien future 11 Ibid. 12 Parliament. “P-Funk.” The Mothership Connection. Casablanca Records, 1975. Spotify. materialism. Benjamin’s angel sees serves as a critique of strictly linear simultaneously. In other words, the notions of history by orienting 13 Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (London: Quartet Books, 1998), 54. the past as a whole catastrophe, not world where history is linear is an 14 Parliament, “P-Funk.” his angel’s narrative toward the a series of independent catastrophic “optical illusion.”28 There is no future 15 Ibid. events leading toward a logical crossroads and The Mothership 16 Parliament. “The Mothership Connection.” The Mothership Connection. Casablanca Records, 1975. Spotify. or past for the Data Thief to return 17 Akomfrah, The Last Angel of History. future. Throughout the text, Benjamin Connection. Near the end of the to because he has entered a realm film, Akomfrah’s angel cannot leave 18 Ibid. levels a critique against Karl Marx where such distinctions are fluid and 19 Houston Baker, Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), Kindle Edition, 228. in particular, and other historical twentieth-century Africa because unfixed. Thus, at the end of The Last 20 Ibid. 21 Neil Degrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey, “A Sky Full of Ghosts.” NBC Studios. Mar 30, 2014. Apr 10, 2014. http://www.hulu.com/watch/615445#i0,p0,d0. materialists generally, for failing to he has gone through the black hole Angel of History, the viewer discovers of the crossroads where time and 22 Baker, 3526. recognize the interrelated nature that the Data Thief is not trapped at 23 Akomfrah, The Last Angel of History. of seemingly separate events over space bend. It is where concepts all. Instead, he is free of the very idea 24 Baker, 3542. time. Moreover, with too much focus such as past, present, and future of chronological history altogether. 25 Ibid., 3554. no longer have the same meanings 26 Ibid. on progress toward the future, the 27 Ibid., 3582. 28 Akomfrah, The Last Angel of History. Throughout the film, Akomfrah refers to how the difference between social reality and science fiction is an ‘optical illusion.’ In this sense, the film suggests that the real lived experience of black people around the world is quite similar to popular science fiction narratives such as those offered by The Mothership Connection.

1 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 257. 2 Ibid., 258. 3 Editors Markus Bockmuehl and Guy G. Stroumsa discuss the various meanings of Paradise in the Christian and Jewish traditions in Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Views (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 4 Benjamin, Illuminations, 257. Susan Handelman’s “Walter Benjamin and the Angel of History,” Crosscurrents: Religion and Intellectual Life 41, no.3 (1992): 344–352 expands upon Benjamin’s use of Paradise and its relationship to the Jewish religious tradition. 5 For more on Benjamin’s critique of historical materialism see Theses I-VI, 253–255. 6 John Akomfrah, dir., The Last Angel of History. Black Audio Film Collective. 1995. May 9, 2014. http://vimeo.com/72909756. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 The narrator of the film makes two specific references to the Data Thief traveling to Africa during the film. In the 26th minute, the Data Thief travels to ‘our time’ and the

56 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 57 j o h n len n o n with m ichael x - i ntervi e w (ht tp s://w w w.yo utu b e.co m /watch?v=EtDu73_4QIc), fr am e g r ab . British life in the postwar period was Uprising!, published in the period the Caribbean immigrated for a Notting Hill riot in 1958 where the had steadily ticked up before counted off in civil disturbances. between the 1981 and 1985 civil number of reasons, most significantly black population was terrorized for drastically increasing at the close of The Fluidity While the term “riot” has a disturbances, leftist journalists Martin due to the perception that there days on end by white “teddy boys” the 1970s. Unemployment was the complicated position in both public Kettle and Lucy Hodges point to was more work opportunity there with iron bars and petrol bombs. highest Britain had seen in decades. discourse and in British legal the long history of British rioting for for them. Alongside those work Police violence against communities The mass migration into mainland tradition, it is possible to delineate a “powerless people” to “physically opportunities, which were both of color showed no signs of of Black Britain in the 1950s and 1960s whole group of hesitations down to challenge the world that seemed scarce and concentrated in the slowing, and the overapplication meant that a large portion of the a set of facts. The 1950s and 1960s to deny them what they wanted.”1 service and construction sectors, of stoppages and arrests on “sus” black and Asian youth of the 1970s witnessed sporadic British uprisings, they also experienced racism (a version of criminal loitering) Radicalism The creation of a new British and 1980s were first-generation. and in the 1970s these became more and what they called the “colour increased tension between those subjectivity in the immediate When Black Audio Film Collective regular as police applied more and bar,” a concept which mirrors communities and an overzealous, period after World War II cannot be member David Lawson spoke about in 1980s more pressure to the generations the American “color line.” implicitly racist police force.3 of immigrant populations that understated, and the understanding the influx of Caribbean immigrants had poured into Britain over the of the collective “who” that rose up These migrants faced systemic at a liquid blackness retrospective This gives us at least a sketch Britain previous three decades. In 1980, in the 1970s and 1980s is dependent racism from a variety of personal and on the Collective’s work in the of an answer to the “who” in Bristol was on fire. In 1981, the on that factor. The postwar years governmental sources. “Europeans Fall of 2014, he characterized it “who was uprising during the populations of Brixton, Southall, saw the passing of the Nationality only” signs were commonly posted as colonial peoples traveling to a 1980s?” and allows us to begin Toxteth, and Liverpool were rising Act in 1948, which in no uncertain outside rental apartments or homes, place that they considered home. to answer the original question up. 1985 saw it all happening again, terms declared that “all citizens forcing a de facto ghettoization of This was doubly literal for the first- of “why were these people rising Cameron both in those places and in others. of independent commonwealth the newly-immigrated that limited generation youth. They were living up in violent response to their Kunzelman countries remained British.”2 Between social mobility. Political party in the unified colonial and cultural government and social situation?” The question that haunted the 1948 and 1962, when the first of members ran on anti-immigration home country of their birth. I am going to use the rest of this authorities during the riots and several immigration-limiting bills and anti-immigrant platforms. There At the same time, they were essay to dwell on this question continues until this day is: why? was passed, there was a massive were many incidents of singular also living in a country that was because it provides us with the At the bottom, what was the root influx of migrants to mainland Britain violence against those immigrants experiencing the worst recession ability to think about elements of cause of these riots? In their book from across the empire. British as well as large events like the citizens from India, Pakistan, and since the prewar period. Inflation fluidity in black radicalism. As a term,

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“black radicalism” evokes several Student Nonviolent Coordinating about the politics of that liquidity another, it is perhaps fruitful to different registers. One is that of the Committee and after. Still another and what it affords in terms of the think backward in order to trace decolonization efforts, in concrete form is the black militarism embodied ability for people of color to act in moments of fluidity that have and written form, demonstrated by the Fruit of Islam and then, later, the world. What we can see in the set the conditions of possibility so clearly by Frantz Fanon in his the Black Panthers. Yet another case of black radicalism is a space for our contemporary period. Toward the African Revolution and is Fred Moten’s sense of the black in which the liquidity of blackness I am going to dedicate the rest of Wretched of the Earth. Another form radical tradition, encompassing the allows for a plurality of methods for this essay to two particular cases is that embodied by various tactics black poetic and jazz traditions as addressing how blackness is marked in which black radicalism’s fluid employed during the American Civil ways of formulating a particular onto the body. Fanon’s description of structure played out in the history Rights Movement: the community, kind of politics that valorizes being hailed as black in Black Skin, and context of the civil disturbances service, and economic boycotts of those modes of artistic creation White Masks is the ur-moment of this in 1970s and 1980s Britain. The the Southern Christian Leadership as ways of understanding new formulation, illustrating how blackness first will be that of Michael X, his Conference that have been folded forms of collective expression constructs both the visual and the particular brand of black radicalism, under the long shadow of Martin and action.4 The jazz ensemble, space the visual takes place in. and how it demonstrates the Luther King, Jr., as well as the early for example, becomes a way of Black radicalism, then, can be seen as space-shaping qualities of liquid Black Power stances of Stokely thinking through radicalism itself. a container that liquid blackness both blackness in the context of the Carmichael during his time with This network of black radicalism in forms and is formed by. In order to riots. The second will be an analysis all of its different forms points to a explain this phenomenon, I will take of how the British political system particular mode of liquid blackness. a speculative historical approach and understood the political uprisings To speak of liquid blackness is, in map the fluid radicalism of the past and how the fluidity of radicalism part, to talk about the ways that with contemporary developments generated a particular kind of (r i g ht) fi g u r e 1: blackness arranges itself in space as in understanding the liquidity of response from the British political Michael X leaving a plane in well as how it arranges space around blackness. While the latter might and policing establishment. the Black Audio Film Collective’s itself. However, if that is true, then inevitably be tied up with current Who Needs A Heart? there are secondary functions of ways that capitalism and the visual John L. Williams’ Michael X: A Life (b l ack au dio fi lm co llec tive, 1991), liquid blackness, and we must talk arts have interweaved with one in Black and White is an account of fr am e g r ab .

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“Michael X captured the attention of a nation that was barreling toward a decade of racial violence...”

the life of Michael De Freitas, who In and out of jail for various charges It is precisely this white liberal guilt became well known as Michael X (and of public disturbance, Michael X that makes Michael X’s story as a at the end of his life, Michael Abdul understood that any developments criminal turned black power public Malik). It is a story of a particular in the political power of black people figure salient for a discussion of the formation of militaristic black in Britain would have to be built on liquidity of black radicalism. Michael radicalism in the United Kingdom a stable structure. His answer came X was able to secure funding from during the 1960s. An heir to the in the form of the Black House, celebrities like John Lennon and Yoko political goals of figures like Malcolm a community and organizational Ono, who committed ten thousand X, Michael X captured the attention center that existed to exclusively pounds to Michael X in order for of a nation that was barreling support black artists and community him to write a book on “the Black toward a decade of racial violence members. Lacking the grassroots Experience.”6 At the same time, he and rebellion. He first burst into the funding base of organizations spotlight with the formation of the like the Nation of Islam, Michael X Racial Adjustment Action Society funded the Black House through “his (RAAS), which was an organization preferred money-raising technique— devoted to racial justice in Britain. exploiting white liberal guilt.”5 (r i g ht) fi g u r e 2: h o r ace ové, m ichael x (m ichael d efr eita s; m ichael ab d u l mali k), 1966, co lo r pr i nt.

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called for donations to the Black make it apparent that the radical solidity in black communities allied House by “upbraiding the white left in the United Kingdom grew with both themselves and others. reader for taking an interest in disenchanted with American-style black struggles abroad but ignoring black radicalism as the 1970s went However, in the investigatory aftermath of these events, we what goes on the home front.”7 In on.9 The civil disturbances of the these moments, he is invoking a 1980s were not generated through a can see a fluid black radicalism black radicalism that reduces the black radical dream of slogans and appearing again. Instead of the complexity of the material, lived community solidarity, but instead radical left evoking a malleable (lef t) fi g u r e 3: conditions of black people and through a response to increased blackness for a tactical victory, this time it is the moderate right The Scarman Report, the controversial turns it into a shapeless, liquid mass pressure by policing agencies.10 that flows through and stands in asserting that there must be a published findings of the British for the actual lived lives of those The British riots of the early 1980s black radicalism at the heart of an government’s official inquest. people. Michael X’s white liberal present a post-black power world uprising against the state apparatus audience, in their rush to find in the sense that black power is that oppressed black people daily. (r i g ht) fi g u r e 4: not an abstracted specter existing “black radicalism,” can only find A reader of Kettle and Hodges’ Uprising!, a book written about the this amorphous, manipulatable rhetorically to secure concessions sociological conditions that caused the riots from intelligentsia of British society. Uprising! will notice this specter mass that claims to represent a vast of black radicalism. In the Sunday published in the early 1980s. plurality of experiences that can Instead, it has become materially grounded within the crowds of black newspaper after the Brixton riots, never be reduced to a single entity.8 men and women literally exercising Sir David McNee alleged that the The period in which Michael X was power to attack and expel militarized riots were started by “troublemakers most active, the late 1960s and police from their communities. While from elsewhere.”11 There were other early 1970s, “reflected the growth these victories in 1980, 1981, and 1985 hints that “white and black agitators of a more radical, autonomist were never totalizing or permanent, came into the area once violence movement in black British politics,” it is a moment where the becoming- had broken out” but had not started but current historical documents liquid, or becoming-abstracted, the riots.12 Later, during July’s so- quality of blackness is thwarted by a called copycat riots, “the hunt was

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on immediately for outside political for The Times, “the problem was rhetorically manifests as anything liberatory, embracing an excess There is a danger in becoming more activists.”13 There were unconfirmed ‘well-educated activists’ who are other than a symptom of a material that can evoke community and than, a double-sided political venture reports of Cockney and Scottish ‘getting young blacks to believe they condition, it becomes abstracted, coalition, it can also be gathered that cannot ever be fully brought voices. The Labour Party Young are victims of police oppression.’”16 moveable, and malleable like clay. and manipulated that much easier. into a wholly liberatory light. Socialists handed out pamphlets, which drew concern around their This is the other side of the When black radicalism follows the involvement in the riots. There were abstracted, fluidification of black pattern of liquid blackness, lifting hints of guerilla tactics being used radicalism. In this case, the Right is and becoming abstracted from by motorcycle gangs and “young able to leverage fears about black material conditions and into the radicalism into an outright moral realm of space-making sensorial men masked in balaclava helmets.”14 panic about a strange, allied group politics, there is a danger that the The inquest into the Brixton riots led of collaborators. Yet, just like Michael abstracted blackness can become 1 Martin Kettle and Lucy Hodges, Uprising! The Police, The People and The Riots in Britain’s Cities (London: Pan Books, 1982), 11. by Lord Scarman, producing the well- X, the conservative ideologues a totalizing, essentializing force. In 2 Ibid 41. known Scarman Report, considered of authority understood that these two examples, I have tried 3 Historical information on this time period in Britain can be found in Kettle and Hodges, Uprising! and Brian D. Jacobs, Black Politics and Urban Crisis in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). and dismissed these claims of outside abstracting this radicalism away from to show ways that black radical 4 The term “black radical tradition” was coined in Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). influencers.15 Despite raised concerns any actual material manifestation politics, in the time around the 5 John L. Williams, Michael X: A Life in Black and White (London: Century, 2008), 170. that there were American, white of political action allows for a riotous period of the 1980s in the 6 Ibid 178 7 Ibid 179 outsider, and Rastafarian direction “justified” reactionary, conservative United Kingdom, have become 8 This is not to suggest that the Black House was all smoke and mirrors to line Michael X’s pockets. John Williams highlights Vince Hines and Herman Edwards as well as “a and organization in the riots, none response to the situation. The fluidly radical. I have attempted to number of solid hard-working community-oriented black people” who worked on setting up and facilitating genuinely beneficial work at and in conjunction with the Black House. of these were substantiated. The fluidity allows for actual black show that this moveable, flowing 9 Kettle and Hodges, Uprising!, 49. civil uprisings were, from the facts organizations, figures, and regular existence of blackness does not 10 Pamphlets and zines published by rioters are still, to me, the most interesting and salient documents that express the intentions of the rioters themselves. Of particular note is the booklet We Want To Riot, Not To Work. that could be gathered, merely people to be sublimated beneath always beget a net positive. While 11 Kettle and Hodges, Uprising!, 114. enacted by large groups of people reports of “grimly determined” the possibility of black radicalism to 12 Ibid, 115. deciding that they were not going young black men who seemed flow through groups (“Black is a state 13 Ibid, 161. to take it anymore rather than the to initiate the riots in Brixton.17 In of mind,” says the protagonist of 14 This and the previous examples are all taken from Kettle and Hodges, Uprising!, 161–162. 15 The Scarman Report contains several pages of evidence about outside influences on the Brixton riots, 73–78. Lord Scarman, The Scarman Report (London: Pelican Books, machinations of organized politics. the moment that the radicalism Who Needs A Heart?) is sometimes 1982). For some like Ronald Butt, a writer 16 Butt is quoted in Kettle and Hodges, Uprising!, 187. 17 Lord Scarman, The Scarman Report, 175.

68 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 69 th e ha jj pi lg r i mag e, o n e o f th e man y sy m bo l s us ed by i pna edito rs to m ove A fric an -A m er ic an s towar ds “o rth o dox ” is l am . al- is l am: th e is l am ic m ovem ent j o u r nal 2, wi nter 1 (1973) While it is well known that African- 1980s is a complex and fragmented of different religious orientations practice) and addressing the social American encounters with the story that involves a myriad of and the rank and file of the Nation and political needs of historically Seeing and Reading global religion of Islam preceded organizations and individuals who of Islam rapidly diminished. disenfranchised black communities the rise of the Nation of Islam in engaged with different elements in the United States. Naturally, During this period, a number the mid-twentieth century as a of Islamic tradition in different the very notions of blackness and of African-American Muslim national movement, historians also contexts with different aims. African-American identity vis- Al-Islam: The Visual organizations emerged to further the recognize that it was only in the Unfortunately, because of the dearth à-vis the notions of American revolutionary ideals and demands of larger cultural context of the black of documentary and literary sources citizenship and membership in the the multifaceted movement for black freedom struggle that figures such from this period, scholars have wider global Muslim community Rhetoric of the Islamic empowerment. Some groups, such as Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X and largely been unable to reconstruct would become a charged subject as the Nation of Gods and Earths Muhammad Ali could help make and understand this important in the discourses underlying these (Five Percenters) and the Hanafis, Party of North America’s Islamic symbols and imagery part of chapter in American social history. movements’ discursive and political black political consciousness. One splintered from the Nation of Islam practices. This essay explores the can add a host of artists, musicians, Therefore, the scholarship on this and further developed aspects of way one organization, The Islamic Newspaper (1971-78) and cultural figures such as Amiri material remains unsurprisingly its ethnocentric theological project Party of North America (IPNA), Baraka, Yusef Lateef, and H. Rap thin and has failed to account for while others, such as the Dar al- active between 1970–1978, managed Brown to this process. By the early a seismic shift recognizable to Islam and the Islamic Party of this tension in its print publication twentieth-first century, estimates any observer of African-American North America, blended old-world Al-Islam: The Islamic Movement suggested that there were well cultural history: namely that before “orthodox” Islamic beliefs with Journal published in Washington D.C. Abbas Barzegar over one million African-American 1970 the majority of African- African-American revolutionary between 1971–78. More specifically, Muslims in the United States. American Muslims were members practices. In doing so, African- it explores the way this tension was Various studies demonstrated that of the Nation of Islam and the word American Muslim organizations addressed in the visual rhetoric of they belong to a range of different Islam in most black communities and movements have struggled to the paper’s cover images (or lack organizations and Islamic religious was virtually synonymous with that strike a balance between adopting thereof) and overall structural layout. the allegedly race-neutral religious orientations.1 The transformation organization; whereas by the mid- of African-American Islam which 1980s African-American Muslim identity of global Islam (which The IPNA was founded by took place between the 1960s and communities flourished in a variety materialized more in theory than in Muzaffaruddin Hamid (originally

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Cornelius Washington), an Atlanta- in the United States and the strategic That the organization’s headquarters born aspiring jazz musician who platform for revolutionary change were only a few blocks away converted to Islam after moving that could overcome such obstacles from Howard University, where to New York City in the early to freedom. The struggle can be members regularly campaigned 1960s. After traveling extensively seen in the employment of visual in competition with other black throughout the Middle East and elements in the paper that oscillate empowerment organizations, is a North Africa, Muzaffaruddin founded between symbols of Islam’s larger testament to the group’s intention to the IPNA in 1971 in Washington D.C., universalist dimensions and those participate in a nationwide cultural operating out of the Community that address the particularities of the debate about black liberation.2 (lef t) fi g u r e 1: Mosque located at 101 S Street. black experience in the United States. The organization was active in the Among the distinctive features of The “Our Ideological Sources” section occupied neighborhoods surrounding Howard the Islamic Party was its strident the middle of the Al-Islam in every issue. University where it distributed its the islamic party of north emphasis on ideology. IPNA used al- is l am: th e is l am ic m ovem ent j o u r nal vo lu m e 1, newspapers in competition with america and al-islam: the Al-Islam as a tool of advocacy and wi nter 1 (1971) islamic movement journal organizations such as the Black pedagogy as it sought to promote Panther Party’s The Black Panther an alternative Islamist humanism Muzaffaruddin established the Islamic and the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad as a remedy for social and cultural Party after becoming disaffected Speaks. It also competed with the revolution in the United States. By with the formal politics of the Islamic Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood adopting a black internationalist Center of Washington D.C., which (founded by Malcolm X) and its perspective and advocating an anti- functioned as a cultural outfit for publication The Western Sunrise. The Civil Rights logic, which argued that the Arab League. In addition, the choice of images, titles, and other African-American liberation needed Islamic Party sought to actualize visual elements of the newspaper to be understood within the historic the promise and potential of Islam Al-Islam demonstrate that the editors framework of European colonialism, as a revolutionary cultural and and writers of the paper struggled the IPNA positioned itself as a critic political force to alleviate black to articulate both the institutional of American institutionalized racism oppression in the United States. racism underlying black oppression as well as of black nationalism.

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Sohail Daulatzai describes the The IPNA’s contribution to African- years, Al-Islam maintained a fairly message. However, the inside feature, because Arabic language letters of support from constituents larger intellectual context: American political thought fits consistent structure throughout its content often lacked any photo and script—in this moment— and/or non-members. A brief squarely within this intellectual publication tenure. According to its or artwork altogether. The back came to signify Islamic orthodoxy review of the cover images, which [W]hile Civil Rights has assumed that landscape. In the post-Civil Rights former editor, Ibrahim Hanif, Al-Islam cover throughout the first year of as opposed to the purported in effect are the only actual images Black Freedom is attainable within U.S. context of ideological competition had a circulation of approximately publication was virtually identical heterodoxy of the Nation of Islam. in the paper, during the first year legal frameworks and political institutions, over strategies for African-American 10,000 copies which were distributed on each issue: the IPNA mission of publication provides insight into critical Black internationalists have liberation, the IPNA sought to nationwide to IPNA members, statement placed in a caption on the On the right hand side of the foldout, the material and ideological culture historically questioned that assumption, undermine what it perceived to be affiliates, and supporters. Outside of top-half/third of the page followed under the subheading of Al-Sunnah, that constituted the Islamic Party. seeing white supremacy as a global the provincialism of black nationalist the D.C. context, in which members by another caption that provided were translations and Arabic originals When analyzed in their historical and phenomenon and looking to international of various Hadith (the Prophet platforms through its own vision dispersed the papers by hand to a creedal message about Islam.5 discursive contexts, the images—or struggles within the Third World as lenses of Islamic humanism. The visual students and community members, The center foldout was titled “Our Muhammad’s words and actions), lack thereof—exhibit the tension for their own battles with white power, rhetoric of the paper demonstrates it is unclear how the papers were Ideological Sources” and included drawn from the text A Manual of Al-Islam editors faced between exploring the tactics and strategies of this dimension of the IPNA in its disseminated in other locations. The on the left-hand side, under the Hadith by Maulana Muhammad Ali. addressing the practical challenges those struggles, and also seeking solace deployment of Arabic font, images of editorial direction of the paper was subheading of Al-Qur’an, both Another core element of the paper of black oppression on the one hand and solidarity by expanding their racial mosques, and extensive use of text. led by Muzaffaruddin, along with the translated and original Arabic verses provided translations of well-known and promoting Islamic humanism as community of belonging. And while other senior members of IPNA. The of the central Islamic text (Figure 1). writings of Maulana Maudoodi, a universal panacea on the other. Civil Rights has assumed that the United The IPNA disseminated this only existing run of the newspapers The translations were those of the Hassan al-Banna, and Sayyid Qutb. States has been a force for good in the perspective through its main is currently housed at Georgia well-known and highly circulated These sections were supplemented world, whether it be through fighting publication Al-Islam: The Islamic State University’s Department of version rendered by A. Yusuf Ali. with a variety of different entries, seeing and reading al-islam and eradicating Communism or any Movement Journal, which began Special Collections and Archives That Al-Islam used this translation, articles, and themes. These typically other perceived threats to U.S. national circulation in 1971. Ranging between and has been curated by the After and not Maulana Muhammad Ali’s, included an editorial message about When considered within the context security, Black internationalists have 16–24 pages per volume, the full size current events, articles about Islamic Malcolm Digital Archive Project.4 which was widely circulated in the of African-American newspaper been skeptical and have even outright paper was intentional in promoting its African-American Muslim community, history, commentary on social and culture, perhaps the most striking challenged U.S. foreign policy, viewing strong ideological position of Islam as The front cover of the journal was deserves note, given that it was the political issues, reports on IPNA feature of Al-Islam is the dearth of it as similar to European colonialism, as a panacea for African-American and typically covered by a piece of latter translation that was used by activity in Washington D.C. and graphic and photographic or other an extension of Manifest Destiny and a Third World liberation alike. Despite artwork or photograph that was the Nation of Islam. The emphasis around the country, book reviews, imagery in the paper. This stands racist logic that it practices at home.3 changes in editorship in its early intended to convey a strong visual on Arabic text is a significant discussions on family and gender, and in stark contrast, for example, to

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“the lack of images and graphics in the script on its own and/or when corners with light floral patterns. That paper was the result of a deliberate rendered in calligraphic form, no translation is provided further functions as a piece of visual rhetoric augments the presence of Arabic in this context. Likewise, while the script as a distinguishing feature of choice of the editorial board...” paper has few if any photographs the textual emphasis of the paper. or images of animate objects (per The title of the paper is rendered in the orthodox Islamic restriction lowercase lettering (“al-islam”) with on such), the use of bold fonts, the subtitle in smaller caps, “The enlarged typescript, and other Islamic Movement Journal.” The manipulations of text communicates lowercase lettering of “al-islam” was visually as well as textually. likely intended to draw attention the celebrated artwork of Emory incorporated photos and graphics in American Muslim groups in the to the Arabic linguistic character Douglas, the influential Minister line with conventions of the time. late 1960s and 1970s adopted so- The inaugural issue of the paper, of the word Islam itself; that is, of Culture for the Black Panther called “orthodox” interpretations Volume 1, Winter 1 (Figure 2), According to Ibrahim Hanif, the the definite article “al-” renders Party between 1967 and 1980. of Islamic law in a deliberate includes no images or graphics former editor of Al-Islam, the lack capitalization in English redundant. Douglas’ work was prominently attempt to distance and distinguish whatsoever.6 When compared to of images and graphics in the paper It also distinguishes “al-islam” from featured in the organization’s themselves from the Nation of Islam other publications in circulation at the was the result of a deliberate choice Islam (e.g., as in Nation of Islam). In publication, The Black Panther. which they regarded as a heretical time, the very absence of imagery of the editorial board. The strategic Likewise, the Muhammad Speaks movement. This emphasis on purity in the paper made it distinct, from a decision was based upon two newspaper of the Nation of Islam and authenticity also informed the visual perspective. Subsequent issues interrelated factors: the widespread was covered with images, photos, limiting of images and graphics in oscillated between including and Islamic doctrinal restriction on images and artistic works that articulated favor of providing space for religious omitting graphics on the cover page. and the intent to provide ideological (r i g ht) fi g u r e 2: the ideas of the organization and and ideological pedagogy. That The inaugural issue features a large, training through the publication Arabic calligraphic rendition of the Islamic informed readers about critical said, the paper contained structures, centrally placed Arabic calligraphic itself. While restrictions on imagery Testimony of Faith, “There is no god but God, events around the world. The texts, and graphics that nonetheless rendition of the Islamic Testimony of are by no means universal in Muslim Western Sunrise, another African- conveyed the ideological orientation Faith (Shahada) in a black box with and Muhammad is His Messenger.” cultures and traditions, many African- American Muslim newspaper, also of the group. For example, Arabic white letters surrounded on the top al- is l am: th e is l am ic m ovem ent j o u r nal , vo lu m e 1, wi nter 1

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the center of the page, in all capital majority of the page, however, is cascading arches. That the name is unknown, but the visual contrast, the moral and political liberation of and bolded typeface letters, the covered with a picture entitled, “Front “Arabia” appears without “Saudi” in and of itself, is self-evident and black peoples in the United States words “War in Islam” appear, which Gates of the Prophet’s Mosque—Al- in front of it was likely a deliberate was likely to be noticed by even a and around the world was the serve as the title of the paper’s lead Medina, Arabia.” This cover stands in choice that sought to negate the cursory viewer. Although there is no raison d’être of their conversion. article. The article provides selected stark contrast to the text-heavy cover notion that the currently reigning explicit mention of black nationalism As Edward Curtis notes, African- translations of the well-known work of the first issue but is consistent Saudi royal family has any proprietary on this cover, I argue that the visual American Muslim identity has often al-Jihad fi al-Islam (Jihad in Islam), in the omission of any depiction of rights over the Prophet’s Mosque. messages of papers in the context of been grounded in narratives of a written by Maulana Maudoodi, the animate objects. In another sense, Of course, featuring the Prophet’s black politics communicated a subtle historic connection between the towering Indian/Pakistani Islamist one could argue that there is a Mosque on the front cover of the critique of ethnic and personality religion of Islam and black peoples.8 scholar, who is introduced as consistency between the two covers. paper emphasizes the organization’s driven politics. This conclusion is It is no surprise, therefore, that the “one of the greatest living Islamic That is, the Arabic calligraphy in orthodox nature. The rectangular corroborated by the testimonies third edition of the paper, Volume Revolutionary thinkers and writers.” the first issue corresponds directly Arabic calligraphic rendition of the of a number of activists from the 1, Spring 2 (Figure 4), features a When one considers the social to the image of the mosque in the Testimony of Faith featured centrally IPNA and the Dar al-Islam, who large gray image of the continent context and function of the paper— second, and both convey symbols in the previous edition appears much consistently report that they were of Africa with the phrase “Islam namely its hand-to-hand distribution of Islam as an abstract and foreign, smaller in the upper left-hand corner turned off by charismatic politics. in Africa” written so that it begins on street corners and college campus but politically relevant idea.7 of the cover. The placement of this in North Africa and winds down The Islamic Party’s critique of courtyards—one may conclude that image/text, again with no translation, to the bottom of the picture.9 the initial impact of the paper’s The photo in this cover features a functions almost as a branding black nationalism and turn towards The title structure, typeface, and message must have been profound. towering minaret and a facade of statement that should be considered Islamic universalism was a difficult aforementioned Arabic calligraphy within the repertoire of circulating ideological program to pursue remain consistent on this cover. It The next cover, Volume 1, Spring 1 images at the time. Namely, one when considering the context of should be noted that this is the first (Figure 3), continues with the same should consider it in contradistinction emancipatory ethnic politics in the and only time that the continent of title structure, but now comes to to The Black Panther’s placement of 1970s. This is especially apparent Africa, or any other explicit image include a rectangular insert at the when one bears in mind that for (r i g ht) fi g u r e 3: Huey P. Newton’s head-shot within or reference to pan-African or black bottom of the page which functions a star at the top-right of that paper. many African-American Muslims nationalist symbols, appears on as a table of contents, entitled Front Gates of the Prophet’s Mosque— who embarked on the journey of Al-Medina, Arabia. Whether or not this was a deliberate the front cover of the paper. Given “Inside Coverage.” The overwhelming choice of the Al-Islam editorial board cultural and religious transformation, that much of the paper’s contents al- is l am: th e is l am ic m ovem ent j o u r nal , vo lu m e 1, s pri n g 1

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in this and other issues are devoted Testimony of Faith, different from the Qur’an on the left hand side, further. It depicts an imaginary this visual tension and contrast to the topic of black nationalism the one that appears as seal in the mirrored with the original Arabic landscape of minarets, domes, tents, may serve as a suitable metaphor vis-à-vis widespread African- upper-left hand corner, is rendered on the right. The caption reads, and citadels. The various architectural for the IPNA’s larger project of American conversion to Islam, it as an arch across the top of the elements in the picture are drawn social and cultural revolution is clear that the Islamic Party’s drawing. Silhouettes of the Ka’ba, the This intricate astrolabe was developed from different parts of the Muslim which consistently struggled to leadership, although committed to a Prophet’s Mosque, and minarets fill in by Muslim scientists in the 13th century, world in a gesture, presumably, to the strike a balance between the ideal universalist Islamic ideal, struggled empty space. It should be noted that A.D. Arising from practical religious Islamic ethos of diversity and unity. universalism of Islam and practical to persuade its target audience. this image is repeated as the cover needs, such as the Hajj (the pilgrimage), In contrast, Volume 1, Fall 2 features necessities of political action. image in the Volume 4, Fall 1 issue. this instrument measured time, a photo of a clenched hand with a The remaining graphic styles and direction and distance and was used in protruding index finger held so as patterns of Al-Islam’s cover images conclusion Volume 1, Summer 2 features developing astronomy and geophysics. to represent the bearing of witness and text do not depart radically a photo of an astrolabe, an one performs upon conversion. from the precedent established in The presumed connection between ancient astronomical navigation The caption reads, “One God— In many ways, the IPNA its first three editions. Throughout religious piety and scientific device used by Muslim scientists, One Message—One Movement.” is representative of larger the remainder of the first year of achievement is part of a much larger flanked on the two top corners Again, the Islamic Party’s struggle transformational trends in African- publication, the covers feature trope in global Muslim thought by a translation of verses from to balance the universalist Islamic American Islam in the late twentieth images representing classical dating back over a century.10 Such ideals of a diverse multicultural global century. The visual rhetoric of its Islamic civilization. For example, a link is a central feature of modern society of faith with the political publication Al-Islam, by deliberately Volume 1, Summer 1 features an reconstructions of the Muslim imperatives of emancipatory politics omitting or downplaying the use artistically rendered open Qur’an world prior to the rise of western in the 1970s is visible in contrast images and graphics, sought to align with stylized Arabic script on the European hegemony and can be (r i g ht) fi g u r e 4: between the two Fall covers. The itself with a global Islamic orthodox pages. A rose rests at the middle counted as one of the many by- former portrays a fantastic imaginary tradition perceived to be capable base of the Qur’an. Protruding from The Islamic Party of North America products of colonial modernity. of global Islam, abstract and of transcending the provincialism the center top of the Qur’an is a addressing issues surrounding black Volume 1, Fall 1 features a drawing distant while the latter photo of a of American racial politics. This tall white candlestick, with a flame nationalism entitled, “There Shall be Light” by clenched fist communicates realism, strategy was adopted by many doubling as a sun, with the word al- is l am: th e is l am ic m ovem ent j o u r nal , Madiha Umari, who is not identified strength, and urgency. Indeed, African-American Muslims during this “Allah” in the center. A calligraphic vo lu m e 1, s pri n g 2

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Prophets and his lack of concern for being accountable for his deeds in the Hereafter. As a matter of fact wherever and whenever any type of evil has plagued human life, period and has colored the internal IPNA’s efforts in the 1970s, African- this very deviation from Allah has been the main cause of trouble. No scheme of reform in human affairs can bear fruit unless and until Obedience to Allah, belief in Man’s dynamics of this highly variegated American Muslim leaders such as accountability after death and adherence to the Divine Guidance as revealed through the Prophets are sincerely and actually made the basis of the entire edifice of human community until the present Warith Deen Muhammad, Sirraj life. Without bringing about this fundamental change, every attempt to reform society on the basis of any of the materialistic concepts of justice (Racism, Nationalism, moment. Recent studies, such as Wahhaj, and Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Capitalism, Communist-Marxism etc.), will only result in other forms of injustice.

Sherman Jackson’s Islam and the over the last three decades, have The Islamic Party is not a nationalist party either. Its ideology transcends all geographical boundaries and encompasses the welfare of the whole world and all mankind Blackamerican, demonstrate the way balanced these competing demands This is why historically and today the Islamists have been and are in the forefront of the struggle for human freedom and dignity. in which African-American Muslim through piecemeal efforts. More in- 6 http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/Islam/id/16/rec/7 communities continue to develop depth studies of African-American 7 http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/Islam/id/151/rec/3 8 Edward E. Curtis IV, “African-American Islamization Reconsidered: Black History Narratives and Muslim Identity,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73, no. 3 practical theological platforms that Muslim articulations of race, identity, (September 2005): 659–684. simultaneously address the realities and Islamic universalism during 9 http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/Islam/id/36/rec/4 of blackness in the United States the period between 1965 and 10 For example, see: Ali Rahnema, Pioneers of Islamic Revival (London: Zed Books, 1994). and the possibilities of pursuing 1985 will likely reveal the roots of 11 Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). an alternative universal humanism discursive tensions still felt today. through Islamic traditions.11 Like the

1 Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience 2nd ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003); Edward Curtis, Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002); Amina McCloud, African-American Islam (New York: Routledge, 1997). For demographics see, Tom. W. Smith, “The Muslim Population of the United States: The Methodology of Estimates,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 66, no. 3 (Autumn 2002): 404–417; “Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism” Pew Research Center, August 30, 2011, http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslim-americans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/ 2 Information regarding the formation of the Islamic Party of North America was obtained from oral histories conducted under the auspices of the After Malcolm Digital Archive in addition to Khaled Fattah Griggs, “The Islamic Party of North America: A Quiet Storm of Political Activism” in Muslim Minorities in the West: Visible and Invisible, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Jane I. Smith, eds., (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2002) 77–106. 3 Sohail Daulatzai, Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012) xii. 4 The After Malcolm Digital Archive is a collaborative research initiative that seeks to document, digitize and preserve the history of African-American Islamic movements between 1965 and 1985. It is co-directed by Dr. Abbas Barzegar of the Department of Religious Studies at Georgia State University and Dr. Bilal King of the Department of Sociology at Morehouse College. More information about the project can be found at sites.gsu.edu/am 5 The two captions read as follows: The Islamic Party of Masjid-ul-Ummah is an ideological party in the widest sense and not a mere political party or a religious or social reform organization. It is based on the firm conviction that Islam is an all pervading and comprehensive ‘Order of Life’ which it intends to promulgate and translate into action in all spheres of human life. The party believes that the root cause of all troubles in man’s life is his forgetfulness of Allah (God) Almighty, his disregard of Divine Guidance as revealed through the

84 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 85 Contributors

Charles “Chip” Linscott works on Kristin Juarez is a Ph.D. student Clinton Fluker is a third year Ph.D. Cameron Kunzelman is a Second Abbas Barzegar is an Assistant the theoretical interventions made by of Moving Image Studies in the student at Emory University’s Century Initiative Doctoral Fellow Professor of Religious Studies sound and popular music in postwar Department of Communication Institute for Liberal Arts. His research in New and Emerging Media at at Georgia State University. He black expressive cultures. He teaches at Georgia State University. Her examines the history and theoretical Georgia State University. His research specializes in early Sunni-Shiite at Ohio University and has written work concentrates on how film influences of Afrofuturism. Fluker interests include the contemporary polemics and the relationship on Sembène and globalization, the and video for art spaces engage is also an Associate Editor at turn to the non- and post-human, between political Islam, anti- political aesthetics of contemporary performativity, space, and place. Southern Spaces and a GRA at videogame development and colonialism, and modern nationalism. African cinema and acted as Kristin serves on the editorial Emory’s Manuscripts, Archives, and culture, and the theories of the He is the co-author of Islamism: guest curator for In Media Res. board for liquid blackness. Rare Books Library (MARBL). sacred written by Colette Peignot. Contested Perspectives on Political Islam (Stanford, 2009).

86 liquid blackness : volume one, issue four liquid blackness : volume one, issue four 87 Our Supporters:

Acknowledgements Dean Pearl McHaney and Annie Latta, David Cheshier, Doug Shipman, at CENCIA, Center for International Chair of the Department Chief Executive Officer and Dina Bailey, and Collaborative Arts at of Communication at Interpretation Curator at the natio nal g eo rg ia state u n iversit y g eo rg ia state u n iversit y center fo r civi l an d h u man r i g hts

Dean Jacquelyn Royster, Lisa Yaszek, DeShawn Jenkins, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at School of Literature, Media, Managing Director, g eo rg ia i n stitute o f tech n o logy and Communication at afr ic a atl anta 2014 Our Speakers: g eo rg ia i n stitute o f tech n o logy The Black Audio Film Collective Film and Speakers Series was made possible through the support of the Center David Lawson, for Collaborative and International Arts at Georgia State former BAFC member and Matthew Bernstein, Romy Malon, Ayoka Chenzira, University (CENCIA) and was cosponsored by Georgia producer for s m o ki n g dogs fi lm s Chair of the Film and Media Events Coordinator at the Director of the Digital State University’s Department of Communication, Africa Studies Department at atl anta contemporary art center Moving Image Salon at Atlanta 2014, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, em o ry u n iversit y s pelman co lleg e Emory University’s Department of Film and Media Studies, Eddie Chambers, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and Associate Professor of Art History, Niklas Vollmer and Daniel Robin, Spelman College’s Digital Moving Image Salon, People u n iversit y o f te x a s at austi n Andy Ditzler, fi lm love Peripheral Visions at Marcus Rosentrater, co ntr aban d ci n ema Store – Talent Agency, and was run in collaboration with g eo rg ia state u n iversit y Film Love, Peripheral Visions, and Contraband Cinema.

As always, and even more so than in the past, the Black Kara Keeling, Audio Film Collective Film and Speakers series benefited Associate Professor of Critical Studies Bram Creighton and Brandon the staff at the Department of and our community supporter Karl Injex, from the passionate work and support of a great number of and American Studies and Ethnicity at Patrick Ellis, Kopelff Recital Hall at Communication, Marilyn Stiggers, th e so u n d tab le people, which we would like to acknowledge individually: u n iversit y o f so uth er n c ali fo r n ia g eo rg ia state u n iversit y Jani Faison, and Diane Sealey

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