Afro-Futurism: Breaking Through
Chances are, if you’ve been actively looking around the art world or the movie industry for any length of time, the term “Afro-Futurism” may have popped up somewhere along the journey.
Afro-Futurism is a celebration of some aspects of African culture and the ever-growing push for increasingly modern technology, merging the two to form a subculture with an incredible vision. This artistic movement has led to the birth of large screen movies such as “Black Panther,” released on Jan 29th, 2018 with an impressive positive critical reception, as well as some exceptional artists like “Osborne Macharia,” whose photography has stood out within the media.
Mark Dery may first have named Afro-Futurism in 1993; however its roots appear to reach back to the 1950s with the cosmic jazz artist “Sun Ra” who took on the persona of a being from Saturn. His notes were chaotic, his music was ambient, his performances unconventional; no keyboard went unused.
Sun Ra and his orchestra, dubbed “Arkestra,” toured the world in an effort to spread peace, but little did he know of the movement he had started. He claimed himself able to transcend both life and death and Taken figuratively, is he wrong? While his work may not be as known today, his influence lives on through the many current artists who seek to further explore the scope of what Afro-Futurism has to offer.
“Afro Geek” has been adopted to describe an African American who has delved into the arts of computer knowledge as Anne Everett popularized it. Of course, as Mark Dery describes it best in his piece “Wired Man’s Burden” a geek is stereotypically a “socially dysfunctional dweeb” which shares similarities with other derogative names like “nerd” or “dork,” but once paired with the empowering “Afro” takes on a whole new meaning. A meaning which is intended to strengthen the African presence in cyberculture as well as speculative science fiction in its usage.
Brian Eno in an interview with Kevin Kelly defines work that is both “nonimprovisational, nonempirical” as being “without Africa,” a vital ingredient in the making of Afro-Futuristic work. Without the “Afro-”, futurism transforms into something entirely different. A representation of movement, the force of modern machinery depicted in still forms and images, constricted to its own set of rules, both highly structured and hierarchical, the very thing that Eno argued against.
Sun Ra is the perfect contrast to these commonly held values of art. His music is free, it is “Africa” as by Brian Eno’s definition. The sounds allowed to be what it desires, allowed to be the beautifully organized cacophony it was always intended to be.
Osborne Macharia has fully embraced Eno’s “Africa” in their work, expressing the many fantastical alternative Afro cultures. His works are improvised, and are as diverse as the culture itself.
Osborne started as a self-taught digital photographer quickly developed through smart thinking, quick improvisation and imagination transformed their digital photography skill-set into a formidable collection of work. At the Michigan Theater on September 13, 2018 they discussed parts of their creative processes on stage, which started first as meetings held with residents in various African communities which in proved as an exceptional source of inspiration. They create a story and costumes for the people they meet, oftentimes based on their life experiences and then abstracted to efficiently bring a glimpse into the roles of gender, inclusivity, identity, culture, abuse, race and much more that they might identify with.

Their inspiration and imagination is allowed to run free and has led to the creation of many works of Afro-Futuristic origins such as The Hip Hop Grandpas of Nairobi who show display a fashionable approach to hip hop, or the Street Adults of Nairobi. Mark Dery argues in his piece for blackness as the gold standard of “the …currency of cool,” which these two collections emphasize, even with the stance back from all the technology. However when paired with Osborne’s other work, they come together to form a greater whole of many subcultures and lend to strengthen the meanings of Afro Geekiness.
Concerns about the digital divide and racial economic inequality regarding the access to current technology. This “Digital Divide” has long an obstacle for the Afro-Futurist movement. However in the long-term false belief of technological illiteracy have proven as harmful to this subculture’s movements in the ways it has enforced stereotypes.
Dery discusses these beliefs in Wired Man’s Burden, the many assumptions about who is “born wired and who isn’t.” He references an African American individual with a PhD in Engineering, stating who discusses the assumed lack of trust in African American individuals, leading to a perception that they have to prove they can be “at least as good as anybody else.”
The careful wording has implications, if an African American individual were to eventually prove themselves, the expectation is set in such a manner to “cap” the ceiling at the lowest acceptable tier for the “anybody else” category.
Alondra Nelson, in her article in the journal Social Text further argues that assumptions about race as a “liability in the 21st century” is negligent, it itself holds onto “old racial ideologies.” As Dery describes: “black geeks rarely appear in… ads,” as even the media helps push the narrative on African Americans being tribalistic, or vocal. It’s an environment that discourages Afro Geeks from reaching their potential to fulfill the roles that have been forced upon them.
Along came MARVEL and Disney, who released their hit Afro-Futurist movie Black Panther, set in the fictional country known as “Wakanda” hidden in sub-Saharan Africa. The movie in part sought to break down many of these negative stereotypes by presenting a successful Afro-Futuristic technologically advanced civilization, with characters fully capable of standing toe to toe with their many other primarily white super heroes.

Disney and MARVEL went out of their way to commission Osborne Macharia for a set of pictures to accompany the release of Black Panther in a display of support and respect for the artist community around Afro-Futurism. Given full control, Osborne created a second layer of fantastical subculture based on the universe of the movie which had an already abstracted iteration of certain aspects of African culture present.

The success of Black Panther’s release sported a public interest may just have been the beginning. Perhaps this rising movement is only the beginning of a whole new generation of artists and will serve as a valuable historical turning point. It is an opportunity not only to break down media expectations, but also mark a turning point for further exploration the full extent of Afro-Futurism. A chance for Afro Geeks to surface and for the misbeliefs about the digital divide clear up.

