An Array of Expanding Definitions - Afrofuturism and Black Speculative Art

 Afrofuturism might be a cultural aesthetic that mixes science-fiction, history and fantasy to explore the African-American experience and it aims to attach those from the black diaspora with their forgotten African ancestry.

Afrofuturism is all about evaluating the past, present and future and imagining a world that encourages better conditions for Black people through literature, music, technology, and arts. In Afrofuturism, the world features a structure that doesn’t violently oppress Black communities. The Black Speculative Art is a response to the Western transatlantic and Arab slave trade, scientific racism and white supremacist global hegemony

Afrofuturism is a term that is said to be coined by Mark Dery in the essay “Black to the future” in 1994. However, it had been born within the minds of thousands of enslaved Africans passing the horrific middle passage while saying prayers for his or her lives which of their descendants. These people dreamt of a society completely which was without both physical and social bondge of oppression. These were the first Afrofuturists, and they brought to life what we know as the definition today.

“We have the power to point out what an inclusive future seems like. We can show what ergonomic housing and transportation, food, and water equality, also the dismantling of systemic racism, looks like. When a narrative is embedded with those visuals it takes on a more powerful connecting tissue. That is Afrofuturism.” quoted an artist. 

What is the concept of Black Speculative Art?

Black speculative art is a creative, aesthetic practice that integrates African metaphysics with science or technology and Sci-Fi. Its essence is to seek to interpret, engage, design, or alter reality for the re-imagination of the past, the contested present, and act as a catalyst for the future. For example, the literature and visual art of Tim Fielder, Milton Davis and Nisi Shawl re-configure the past with Steamfunk or Dieselfunk expression. Other examples are the visual art of Kapwani Kiwanga, Quentin Vercetty and Osborne Macharia who also reinterpret African culture and history with an eye on the future.

How is Afrofuturism misunderstood?

In the recent past, the foremost common misconception about Afrofuturism is that it is a recent phenomenon, but Afrofuturism is only the most recent description that has been given to what we call Black Speculative thought. Current thought in the American African Diaspora traces its origins to the mid-19th century and early 20th century proto-Black speculative works of Martin Delany, Pauline Hopkins, W.E.B. Dubois and others. The Black Speculative tradition emerged out of the nexus of the economic revolution, scientific racism, and therefore the transnational Western and Arab slave trade .

What makes the art of Afrofuturism so popular at the moment!

BSAM is a loose umbrella term which represents different positions or basis of inquiry: Afrofuturism 2.0 and its several Africanist manifestations, i.e. Black Quantum Futurism, African Futurism, Astro Blackness, Afro-Surrealism, Afro-Pessimism, Ethno Gothic, Black Digital Humanities, Black  which is also Afro-future female or African Centered Science Fiction. Although these positions could also be incompatible in some instances, they overlap round the term speculative art and style, and interact around the nexus of technology and ethics.

The current popularity of Afrofuturism can be credited to its progression through the lenses of the Black Panther narrative. The comic character of T’Challa, the Black Panther, was developed by comic artist Jack Kirby within the Sixties, during the Vietnam war, the African Independence struggle, and therefore the Black Power and the Black Arts movement. Incorporating in it the elements of magic and science, the Black Panther emerged as a figure who would interact with other heroes such as the Avengers or the X-men and regarded as the first archetypical figure of Afrofuturism in the comic medium and film.

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