BLACK ONTOLOGY AND THE LOVE OF BLACKNESS (2016)
Introduction | liquid blackness in Conversation with Arthur Jafa | Special Guests | Event Schedules | Dreams are Colder than Death Research Project | About the Artist
Introduction
In April 2016, the liquid blackness research group invited filmmaker and visual artist Arthur Jafa to be a part of two special events: first, “Can Blackness Be Loved?” a screening of his essay film Dreams are colder than Death (2013, 52 min) as part of the Special Event for the Conference for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies in Atlanta, GA, [1] and second, “Arthur Jafa in Conversation: Strategies for a Black Aesthetics” a public dialogue between the members of the liquid blackness research group and the filmmaker about his artistic practice and aesthetic strategies.
These events are an extension of the liquid blackness research project’s study of artists and filmmakers particularly concerned with the creation of a black aesthetics, a project that began with the group’s inception in Fall 2013 when it co-hosted the L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black American Cinema film series with Emory’s Department of Film and Media Studies. We understand Jafa’s film Dreams are colder than Death , as an extension of this artistic lineage. The film is an experimental documentary/essay film that leverages a reflection on the legacy of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech,” to pose more fundamental and pressing questions: “what is the concept of blackness? Where did it come from? What does it mean for people of color living in America today?” Woven together with lyrical slow motion images of ordinary black people mostly in outdoor spaces, images of water and cosmological images of deep space, the voices of some of the most powerful contemporary thinkers and artists in black studies and black arts engage in a meditation on the ontology of blackness and its relationship to life, death, and the concept of the human in the context of the “afterlife of slavery.” Ultimately, through the words of Fred Moten, the film poses the question of the possibility to love black people as well as what it might mean to commit to blackness against fantasies of flight.
[1] Co-chaired by Alessandra Raengo, Department of Communication, GSU, and Matthew Bernstein, chair of the Film and Media Studies Department at Emory University.
“Can Blackness Be Loved?” – April 8, 2016
In conjunction with the Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2016 Conference Host Committee, liquid blackness is organizing and co-sponsoring the marquee event for this year’s conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The event will include the screening of acclaimed filmmaker Arthur Jafa’s experimental film Dreams are Colder than Death (2013) and a panel discussion including Jafa, film scholar Kara Keeling (University of Southern California) and African American philosopher George Yancy (Emory University) at Atlanta’s recently opened Center for Civil and Human Rights, an immersive, multi-mediatic and interactive environment which archives the Civil Rights Movement within its historic media landscape. Jafa’s filmography includes pivotal works of independent African American cinema, which includes working as the cinematographer on Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) and John Akomfrah’s Seven Songs for Malcolm X (1995). Like his prior films, Dreams are Colder than Death provides an opportunity to reflect on Blackness and (cinematic) form.
This special event presents an occasion and a space to consider the implications of Jafa’s work. Thus, the event intentionally poses the enduring research question, “can blackness be loved?” in Atlanta’s new monument to racial progress. To answer this provocative question and bridge the gap between Dr. King’s commitment to Civil and Human Rights and the contemporary moment, the film features interviews with the foremost artists and scholars of Blackness including: author/professor Hortense Spillers, poet and philosopher Fred Moten, filmmaker Charles Burnett, professor Saidiya Hartman, ex-Black Panther and professor Kathleen Cleaver, music producer Flying Lotus, musician and producer Melvin Gibbs, contemporary artists Kara Walker and Wangechi Mutu, and visual culture scholar Nicole Fleetwood, among others.
National Center for Civil and Human Rights
100 Ivan Allen Jr Blvd NW,
Atlanta, GA 30313
This event is part of Civil Encounters with Black Media and Black Life, a night on contemporary issues of media and race in the context of Atlanta at the Center for Civil and Human Rights. The first 150 registered conference attendees will be able to freely visit the Center’s Civil Rights and Human Rights Galleries during the evening. Seats are on a first come/first serve basis. Group discount tickets ($10) are also available for purchase at the door.
“Arthur Jafa in Conversation” – April 4, 2016
In conjunction with a research project on “Black Ontology and the Love of Blackness ,” liquid blackness will lead a public conversation with Arthur Jafa, director of the lyrical documentary film Dreams are Colder than Death after the April 2ndscreening at the Center for Civil and Human Rights.“Arthur Jafa in Conversation” will focus on Jafa’s multidisciplinary work as a cinematographer, director, and installation artist and explore some of the conceptual and practical strategies he has developed to pursue a black aesthetics, while maintaining a practice that moves between the museum and the movie theater.
Thanks to the support of the Honors College, liquid blackness has invited Jafa to share with Georgia State University students and faculty some of his work as well as his thoughts about artistic experimentation, the pursuit of a black aesthetics, and the way music influences his own understanding of the possibilities of the visual arts. The coordinator of liquid blackness Dr. Alessandra Raengo and members Lauren McLeod Cramer and Kristin Juarez will lead the conversation.
liquid blackness in Conversation with Arthur Jafa
Special Guests
“Can Blackness Be Loved?”
Kara Keeling, scholar of African American film, theories of race, sexuality, and gender in cinema, critical theory, and cultural studies.
Keeling, Kara. “Getto Heaven: Set It Off and the Valorization of the Black Lesbian Butch-Femme Sociality.” Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research 33, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 59–63.
—-“‘In the Interval’: Frantz Fanon and the ‘Problems’ of Visual Representation.” Qui Parle: Literature, Philosophy, Visual Arts, History 13, no. 2 (2003 Spring-Summer 2003): 91–117.
—-“Looking for M—: Queer Temporality, Black Political Possibility, and Poetry from the Future.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, no. 4 (2009): 565.
—- “Electric Feel.” Cultural Studies 28, no. 1 (January 2014): 49. doi:10.1080/09502386.2013.779735.
George Yancy, philosopher working in the areas of critical philosophy of race, critical whiteness studies, critical phenomenology (especially, on racial embodiment), and philosophy of the Black experience
Yancy, George. “Elevators, Social Spaces and Racism A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 34, no. 8 (October 1, 2008): 843–76.
—-“African-American Philosophy: Through the Lens of Socio-Existential Struggle.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 37, no. 5 (June 1, 2011): 551–74.
—-“Introduction: Black Philosophy and the Crucible of Lived History.” The Black Scholar, 2013.
Yancy, G. (with Joy James). “Black Lives: Between Grief and Action” in The Stone (The New York Times), December 22, 2014.
Yancy, George, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Charles Johnson. “Interpretative Profiles on Charles Johnson’s Reflections on Trayvon Martin: A Dialogue between George Yancy, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Charles Johnson.” Western Journal of Black Studies 38, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 1.
Yancy, George. “Introduction: Of Embodiment And Racialization,” Knowledge Cultures, Vol. 3 (1), 2015, special issue on the theme of racial embodiment.
—-“White Suturing, Black Bodies, and the Myth of a Post-Racial America,” in ARTS/The Arts in Religion and Theological Studies, Vol. 26, no. 2 (March 2015).
—-“Through the Crucible of Pain and Suffering: African American Philosophy as a Gift and the Countering of the Western Philosophical Metanarrative,” Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 47, No. 11 (Oct, 2015): 1143-1159.
“Arthur Jafa in Conversation”
Alessandra Raengo, PhD is an Associate Professor of Moving Images Studies at Georgia State University and the author of On the Sleeve of the Visual: Race and Face Value (2013) and Critical Race Theory and Bamboozled (forthcoming Fall 2016).
Lauren McLeod Cramer is a PhD candidate in Moving Image Studies at Georgia State University and writing a dissertation on hip-hop and the architecture of blackness.
Kristin Juarez is a PhD student in Moving Image Studies at Georgia State University who focuses on the development of the counter-archive in film and video installation art.
Event Schedules
“Can Blackness Be Loved?” - Saturday, April 2, 2016 6:30-10:30pm
“Civil Encounters with Black Media and Black Life” at the Center for Civil and Human Rights
6:30-7pm - Society for Cinema and Media Studies Host Committee Reception
7-8pm – “Atlanta on the Rise: The Emerging African-American Television Industry”
8:15-9:45pm – “Can Blackness Be Loved?”
9:45-10:30pm - Dessert Reception
“Arthur Jafa in Conversation: Strategies for a Black Aesthetics” - Monday, April 4, 2016 1-2:30pm
Kopleff Auditorium
10 Peachtree Center Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30303
Free and open to the pubic