Holding Blackness: Aesthetics of Suspension Staff Editorial Board Lauren M. Cramer, Pace University Charles, “Chip” Linscott, Ohio University Derek Conrad Murray, University of California, Santa Cruz Holding Blackness: Aesthetics of Suspension Alessandra Raengo, Georgia State University James Tobias, University of California, Riverside Social Media Jenny Gunn Brooke Sonenreich Managing Editor Daren Fowler Chief Copy Editor Charleen Wilcox Issue Staff Shady Patterson John Roberts Visual Design and Layout Cameron Hubbard volume 4, issue 7 Cover Image "Black Up" (Directed by Kahlil Joseph, 2011) October 2017 2 liquid blackness : volume four, issue seven Contents OVERVIEW 05 Contents 08 Introduction Alessandra Raengo 42 Essays 170 Contributors 08 Introduction 174 Acknowledgements Daren Fowler 42 To Erotically Know: The Ethics and Pedagogy of Moonlight Arzu Karaduman 60 “Hush-hush, I Will Know When I Know”: Post-Black Sound Aesthetics in Moonlight Netrice Gaskins 84 Algorithmic Analytics: Race, Blackness and Data in Song of Solomon and “Alright” Steve Spence 96 Hip-Hop Aesthetics and La Haine Sarah Smith 118 Aesthetic Deception in Selling the Shadow Lauren M. Cramer 142 Icons of Catastrophe: Diagramming Blackness in Until the Quiet Comes liquid blackness : volume four, issue seven 5 B LACK UP (D IRECTED BY K AHLIL J OSEPH , WHAT MATTERS MOST/P ULSE FILM S , 2011), FRAM E GRAB . The idea for the seventh issue of around forms of suspension in artistic the liquid blackness journal, which practices that move fluidly between it may be precisely where the proper terms of Holding welcomes the contribution of a a number of exhibition venues and newly assembled editorial board visual forms, including filmmaking, the lineage seem the least transparent that the that includes Derek Conrad Murray music video, and installation art.2 Blackness: (UC Santa Cruz), James Tobias (UC The experimental cinematography, Riverside) and Charles “Chip” Linscott the frequent movement across work of the archive becomes most necessary (Ohio University), alongside Lauren scale—from the mundane to the Aesthetics of M. Cramer (Pace University), who is celestial, from the individual to the one of the founding members of the cosmological—synched to a carefully 1 group, came together in occasion calibrated “durational drag,” and the Suspensions of the October 6–7, 2016 screening way it holds in balance the thinking of Nowhere (Ava DuVernay, 2012), Selma (2017), and Jafa’s most recent work different artistic practices, modes and symposium titled “Holding life and the thinking of death, place (Ava DuVernay, 2014), and Arrival as a cinematographer for Solange’s and venues. Yet, as liquid blackness Blackness in Suspension: The Films suspension at the heart of Jafa’s (Denis Villeneuve, 2016), as well as videos for A Seat at the Table member Jenny Gunn has argued, it Alessandra of Kahlil Joseph,” which explored film.3 Whether we approach the idea his directorial debut Black America (2016), as co-director of the title may be precisely where the proper the intensely arresting aesthetics of suspension as a way to bring into Again (in collaboration with Common, video for Jay-Z’s 4:44 (2017), and as terms of the lineage seem the least Raengo of the Los Angeles-based music focus formal concerns or thematic/ 2017); Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood sole author of Love is the Message, transparent that the work of the video director and installation artist. philosophical ones, since our research (2014), Beyoncé’s Lemonade (2016)— the Message is Death (2016). archive becomes most necessary.4 Joseph was also one of Arthur Jafa’s on Dreams and the symposium on which Joseph collaborated— Indeed, the unruly genealogy of a closest collaborators on Dreams are on Kahlil Joseph’s work, we have Berry Jenkins’ Moonlight (2016), In the article, “The Profound Power black aesthetic demands eclectic colder than Death (2013), which was found a somewhat similar sensibility Donald Glover and Hiro Murai’s of the New Solange Videos,” for (or “liquid” as we have called them) the subject of our previous research in a growing list of works and Atlanta (2016)—especially given The New Yorker (October 24, 2016), forms of collection and analysis. It project on “Black Ontology and the practitioners, which include Bradford the way Murai recognizes a debt Cassie Da Costa highlights the requires a willingness to follow hints, Love of Blackness,” and is a film Young’s cinematography for Pariah to Joseph’s work—Joseph’s video challenge of tracing the development hunches, and family resemblances, that crystalized for us the idea of (Dee Rees, 2011), Mother of George for Sampha’s debut album, Process of distinctive black aesthetic modes with the idea that they might a growing aesthetic mode pivoting (Andrew Dosunmu, 2013), Middle of across diverse instantiations spanning 8 liquid blackness : volume four, issue seven liquid blackness : volume four, issue seven 9 Introduction Introduction succeed in providing, supplementing liquidity as a mode of formal analysis of scholarly investigation, processes as the lifting of forces of gravity, liquid blackness I curated in April Similar or at least complicating, existing and a foundational commitment of cultural and aesthetic liquefaction it implies a quasi-contradiction 2016 for the listserv empyre.9 tools of formal analysis. of the group: to keep blackness we had seen already underway in between its “visual effect [..] philosophically safe. In other words, our contemporary visual and sonic (hovering and lightness) and the Although not directly visible in it, to black It is in this spirit that we have we are testing whether “suspension” culture—they also responded to a process that creates suspension questions of hermeneutics, ethics slightly revised the structure of the can offer, as Daren Fowler puts it concern for the difficult ethics of that (force and pressure).”7 This and praxis animated the list of “liquidity,” present publication in two important in his essay for this issue, “a praxis same critical operation. “Liquidity,” I willingness to read for it, we feel, is terms I wrote to announce the ways: first, past issues of the liquid for the ethics of black liquidity.”5 have repeatedly claimed, functions as also at its core an ethical choice—that launching of the liquid blackness blackness journal have pivoted a pressure point: it is diagnostic and is, a willingness to have it orient one’s group, terms that were supposed seeing The need to clarify both ethics and around existing research projects critical, descriptive and generative, scholarly and pedagogical practices. to function evocatively, particularly praxis prompted me to evoke the usually built around a limited set equally evocative of processes of for artists who might have been concept of suspension since the suspension is of objects (such as Larry Clark’s objectification, commodification, and For this reason—and this is the exploring forms of black liquidity in very first public statement I ever Passing Through for the research fungibility, as well as expansiveness second revision to our usual their work or modes of unmooring made about liquid blackness as a on “The Arts and Politics of the and inexhaustible formlessness and publishing structure—we have blackness from the body and the complicated way to characterize the “critical act Jazz Ensemble,” or Jafa’s Dreams potentiality. Similarly, suspension decided to hold this very journal subject so that they (i.e., blackness, one might perform in attempting are colder than Death for the last seeks to identify sites, moments, issue in suspension and offer the body, and the subject) could to understand its contours....What and thus it issue on “Black Ontology and the and modes where the tension ways to continue to “think along,” be momentarily addressed in their if we held blackness in balance,” Love of Blackness”), as a way to between these two poles is placed collectively, around this productive own terms. The list appeared on the I asked, “not necessarily to sever 8 too requires engage this complicated archive and at a distance or held in some form of topic. To this end, we will release a liquid blackness website for the first it from its lived experience, but in continue to emphasize the cultural temporary, if precarious, balance. working bibliography surrounding time in fall 2013 and in summer 2015 and political work of form. Here, order to confront and come to terms this idea and some of the objects and was reprinted in the exhibition a hermeneutic however, we are experimenting with with the many other ways in which Similar to black “liquidity,” seeing that have crystalized it for us, as catalog for Mark Bradford’s show a more inclusive gesture to test it exists?”6 While these questions suspension is complicated and thus it well as an interactive version of the Scorched Earth, curated by Connie decision whether “suspension” might be a posed blackness as a concept and too requires a hermeneutic decision. month-long conversation around Butler at the Hammer museum productive concept to describe a a thing in and of itself—as a way to Even at a basic level, as Lauren M. the concept and methodologies of in L.A. (Figure 1) Bradford is an less ambiguous connection between take seriously, as a legitimate object Cramer puts it, when understood artist whose use of abstraction 10 liquid blackness : volume four, issue seven liquid blackness : volume four, issue seven 11 Introduction Introduction FIGURE 1. LIQUI DITY LIST • Sensuousness – liquid blackness is sensorially rich and erotically charged • Affectivity – liquid blackness exists and moves in between bodies can productively be regarded as a • Formlessness – liquid blackness fills all available space and fluidly transforms The call for papers for the practice of suspension, insofar as with the shape of its container. current issue contained it is often the outcome of several – in its shape-shifting qualities, liquid blackness is capable of another list (Figure 2).