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Transforming Tech Afro and Indigenous Futurism: Temporality & Identtiy in the digital Age

Techno-Futurism: An Exclusionary Space

Technological and digital advancement promises a bright, clean, superior future, unfettered by the complexities of race and identity, freed of the “primitive past”. This itself is a form of oppression, negation, and erasure. One in which black and native bodies, identities, and collective histories are devalued and sidelined, left out of digital imagination of the future. Black and native communities are often “othered'' in relation to the utopian digital future that we see peddled in advertisements and the corporate structures of silicon valley.

The overarching paradigm of the white, heteronormative digital future paradigm is of the “digital divide”, in which the underlying assumption by the prevailing forces rests that black and native communities cannot keep up with the rapid pace of technological advancement in our tech driven world. This neo-colonialist narrative does not attribute the digital divide to the very real socioeconomic and structural issues that have contributed to the inequities of the digital world. Nor does it recognize the historical centrality of black and native contributions and labor in the name of technological advancement and industry. This mainstream vision of techno-futurism abandons all notions of history and the past, shuttering black and native communities and their histories from narratives of the digital future.

Reimagined Black and Indigenous Futures

Afro and Indigenous Futurism are cultural and artistic responses and interventions upon the hegemonies of the prevailing techno-futurist narrative. A paradigm that re-envisions the strict structures of temporality and identity, opening a new framework and a newly codified future in which black and indigenous communities not only exist, but thrive and innovate. Narratives and artwork in this mode often depict black and indigenous people and characters engaging in community building, creation and innovation of new technologies, and resistance to dominant narratives and modes of oppression.

De-Colonized Temporality

Afro and Indigenous Futurism share a common thread in their complex visions of temporality. In the Afro and Indigenous Futurist paradigm, history and tradition are not banished or erased, the past is viewed as living, existing in the present, embraced in the future imaginary. Black and Indigenous futurism imagine a future in which their communities are not severed from their histories, but rather envision a future that is a blend of tradition and futurity, making past and present run at the same time together, in synchronicity. This sense of counter-hegemonic temporality is key to understanding the Afro and Indigenous Futurist paradigm.

Defining Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history that explores and imagines the intersection of African diaspora culture with technology in the digital age. Using narrative and visuals modes such as science fiction, futurist themes, and technological innovation, Afrofuturism ruptures what historian Evelyn Hammond describes as "the myth of black disingenuity with technology."

In the Afro-Futurist tradition, the experience of the African diaspora is not erased, but rather grounds the narrative of the conceived future. Afrofuturism retains and builds upon varying visions of black futures throughout the past and present.

Afrofuturist Literature

Afrofuturism holds a strong literary tradition. What is included within the umbrella of Afrofuturist literature exhibits the genre's unique sense of temporality. The contemporary canon is ever expanding, and includes texts as wide ranging as historical literature and memoir, science fiction, graphic novels, and comics. Inclusion of historical texts such as those of Sojourner Truth and WEB Dubois in the Afrofuturist literary canon allow a re-codification of historical texts to be understood as future oriented, encompassing visions of black futures from the past, showing their value in the present and future.

A hero of modern Afrofuturist literature is the Black science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, often regarded as the 'Mother of Afrofuturism', and the starting point for many Afrofuturist reading lists and academic syllabi. Butler ruptured the white-male hegemony of the science fiction genre, writing stories that placed black female characters in positions of narrative power.

Afrofuturist Music

Jazz Musician Sun Ra
Musician and Fashion Icon Grace Jones

Afrofuturism has along tradition of representation within the space of music, from jazz artists like Sun Ra, to funk legends Parliament Funkadelic, to avante garde icons like Grace Jones. One contemporary example of Afrofututurism is exemplified in the music and futurist personas of Janelle Monae.

Defining Indigenous Futurism

A significant foundational framework of Indigenous-Futurism is the theme of Indigenous self-determination, through a lens of rhizomatic temporality that is rooted in Indigenous traditions. Foundations of Indigenous futurist thought are based in the concept of biskaabiiyang, a Seven Generations Iroquois Philosophy meaning a returning to one’s self, a reconciliation of past past and present, a way to reinterpret the past, and inflect the future with history and tradition. Through Indigenous Futurism, historical traumas such as colonization, institutional racism, ecological destruction, and genocide are addressed via imagined, self-determined embodiments of the future, borne of a unique Indigenous perspective and conceptualization. Noted professor of Indigenous Studies Grace Dillon writes:

‘Indigenous Futurisms are not the product of a victimized people’s wishful amelioration of their past, but instead a continuation of a spiritual and cultural path that remains unbroken by genocide and war’.

Indigenous Futurist Art

Adrienne Keene, (Professor of American and Ethnic Studies at Brown University and member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) describes the Indigenous Futurist mode as such:

These pieces of indigenous art, writing, film, whatever it may be posit a future where indigenous ways of knowing, being, and relating allow us to re-imagine, re-create, and exist–while also looking to the past and the present simultaneously.

Burgeoning from contemporary artists within native tribes of the Southwest, one sub genre of Indigenous Futurist visual artwork is based in repurposing imagery from the Star Wars film universe, blending it with Indigenous imagery. Indigenous artist Ryan Singer of the Diné or Navajo nation says that growing up, his “homeland blended into Tatooine,” (Luke Skywalker’s home planet in the Star Wars universe). Art Historian Suzanne Newman Fricke posits that the resonance of Star Wars among indigenous artists is because Star Wars “envisioned a universe where elemental forces and futuristic technologies co-existed, offering characters and settings that were both familiar and alien.”

Indigenous Futurism & the Art of Skawennati

Skawennati’s expansive practice connects the spheres of fine art, education, and cyber culture. And throughout her career, Skawennati has explored notions of Indigenous temporality and the rewriting of dominant narratives, bringing historical figures and stories into the present through digital media.

Indigenous Futurism is embodied in Skawennati's creation of 'Time Traveller tm" of a series of videos called "machinimas" that are built in Second Life. The series follows the adventures of Hunter, a young Mohawk man in twenty-second-century Montreal who experiences a crisis of identity while inhabiting the techno-consumerist society around him. Through the nine-episode series, Hunter searches for meaning in his contemporay life by reaching into the past. Hunter uses "TimeTraveler tm" glasses (a futurist invention of the narrative), which allow him to experience firsthand various chapters of Indigenous history.