Reading:
Mark Dery, "Black to the Future"
John Sobol, "Digitopia Blues": Hip-Hop's Four Oral Elements & Flippin' The Script
(follow the same rules re: ID and password as last week)
2) One of the major underlying themes of John Sobol's essays is the fundamental distinction between literate culture and oral culture. What do you see as the primary difference between these two cultures and how can this contribute to our understanding of hip-hop music as a form of re-mix?
58 comments:
1) Afro-Futurism is an attempt of oppressed American minority (and over-looked global minority) to reconcile their unnatural birth into western culture and their lot as a necessary lower-class cog in a gleaming machine of racism. The history of Black culture in America begins with the cesarean removal of Africans from their mother’s womb. The surrogate mother was an emotionless mechanism wanted two things of her adopted, Black children: their lives and their silence. The Afro-futurist movement uses the systemized oppression of their past, as American robots, to create metaphors of their future goals as those robots, aliens and deformed individuals of western creation. The movement adopts technology as a soulless means to an end, a metaphor for their forced migration to western countries. And like the machines of The Matrix, Afro-Futurism looks to a day when simply by the machinations set in place, the ruling class will destroy themselves.
2) Literate culture is a static discourse in which the texts are imprisoned on the page. Oral culture is free of those bonds, creating texts that shift, shimmer and dance across the culture. Oral culture is based on performance, the originality and spontaneity offered in a given form only once. Strong similarities may be apparent from performance to performance but the text, discourse, is specific to time, place, performer, and audience. Oral culture is techno, hip-hop, rap-lyrics, and the future of neo-spoken-word. Spoken word, at the moment, remains an extremity of literate culture as most poetry readings don’t feature improvisation but rather recitation of written texts. Readings, also, lament the physical presence and limitations of the body, oral culture rejoices in the body. As re-mix, hip-hop samples the often sacred texts (Queen + David Bowie’s “Under Pressure,” Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”) of literate culture to create new meanings, new contexts, new life for those texts. Hip-hop and oral culture in general frees those texts from the vaults of academia and lets them fly into a moment of beauty, as a moth into a flame.
Timothy Sienko, Group 4
1) "Black people," says Tate, "live the estrangement that science-fiction writers imagine."
"Adopting 'the robot' reflected a response to an existing condition: namely, that they were labor for capitalism, that they had very little value as people in this society. By taking on the robotic stance, one is 'playing with the robot.'
Afro-Futurism seems to be a way of rebelling against black culture in America. It is a way of fighting back against the people who look down on them and often strip their pride. The above quotes make it clear that African Americans still feel the separation from our society that they have felt since the beginning when they were made our slaves. By embracing technology, specifically robotics, they seem to be showing that they are accustomed to the life and accept it, but throughout the reading it didn't feel that way to me. It seemed as if instead, they were preserving their pride. They could embrace what they consider themselves to be in society and make something unique from it, something that only they can understand. The result is a growing creativity, rebellion, and separation. They have taken what we started, mixed it their own way, claimed it, and used it to stay together, united against the few whites left that are still racist.
2)Oralists, the rappers, don't write music, don't pre-plan their ideas, or at least didn't at the time they were first formed. They didn't care if language was correct, words were spelled correctly, and grammer was perfect. Instead, they did improv lyrics, thinking on their feet and enlivening the audience. They used slang liberally because it sounded better, rolled off the tongue easier, and engaged audiences faster. They learned to enhance this skill and came up with hip hop, a unique remix of white men's music, fully their own and entirely unique. Basically, there are no constraints this way. Constraints can ruin art and creativity. Hip hop artists also were especially great at remixing known songs, combing only a few short seconds of each, but doing it in such a way that no one else had ever done. Not listening to rules, they used creativity to go outside the box and find new ways of doing things.
~Jackie Bentley, Group 3
Afrofuturism is the black man's perspective of the future. his ideas and developments. the article starts out discussing how scifi is a white dominate genre. afrofuturism would be considered the black scifi because it seems that white man has taken over the ideas of the future, this term is what they call the black man's idea of the futre and their significant role in it.
With oral culture it is in the now. it is expressing one's self using language and also making that language sound. much of the oral language was improv unlike literal culture where it was well thought out and written. hip hop uses impro and language as sound to express a message or a feeling. it is like spoken poerty but written while speaking it, not tim and concetration goes into hip hop like written poets.
Mark Dery describes Afro-futurism as some sort of way or attempt for people of african american descent and minority to transform themselves into western culture. He talks about how no African Americans really write about science fiction when it is the perfect topic for them. "The stranger in the strange land", he writes. It can also be described as the black man's perspective of the future. Like what Jillisa says, the white man has taken over the ideas of the future. They talk about how by adapting to technology, they have become more in tune with life. I didn't really see that at all as I kept reading. To me, it seemed that they didn't adapt and kept to their pride. This would only lead to more seperation and rebellion.
Oral culture can be defined in a lot of ways. To me, oral culture is expressing one's self through their language or lingo. It doesn't always have to be understood by those who don't speak their language. In fact, it doesn't always have to be understood. It can simply be making one's language sound or heard. Me, for example, I listen to a band called Sigur Ros. They're an Icelandic band and I can't understand what they're saying, but that's ok because their music is so beautiful that it doesn't have to be understood. It simply has to be heard. In the case of oralists, they really only tend to make sure that they improve lyrics. They don't care about grammar or ideas, really. In a way, this is much like rap and hip hop today. Hip hop is essentially a remix. It can be a remix of known songs, but also has it's own creativity. It can also be more literate
Lydell Peterson
Group 1 (Emir)
1) Afro-futurism in my opinion is the concept of a minority (from one culture, Africa) taken against their will and forced into another culture (Western or USA) and having them try to adapt and relate to that culture. The futurism part is simply the method in which African Americans used as a metaphor and way to adapt into that culture. In their own way they related to and found comparisons in a “robotic/futuristic/sci-fi” branch of western culture and adapted that to their own lives and use this metaphor to compare their experience of being from African decent living in a culture unlike Africa. Afro-futurism is a movement that takes the sci-fi/futuristic theme and relates it to the African experience of being a minority in a country not of their origin. This can relate to class because it shows the impact that technology can have on a culture and how it can shape that culture. The technological advances lead to a relation of the African-American experience and its use as a metaphor in that culture. “African American culture is Afrofuturist at its heart, literalizing Gibson’s cyberpunk axiom” (Dery, 11).
2) Oral culture is the free styling, improvised, or create as you go, type of culture. It isn’t necessarily completely thought out but instead relies on the experience of the event and free thought to create an “in the moment” piece of work. Literate culture is thought out but is fixed on the page and not necessarily thought up at the spur of the moment or “live.” Even though some rap is becoming more like literate culture it still maintains its spur of the moment, roll of the tongue vibe that it has long been associated with. I believe the primary difference between the two cultures is that literate culture is an organized thought out process while oral culture is an “on the fly” creation. Oral culture may use literate culture (like Timothy used his Queen/David Bowie song “Under Pressure” as a great example) but it uses parts of it turns it into a remix. This remix adds new depth to the literate work strengthens it making it something all its own corresponding to the “on the fly” type of logic. This clearly demonstrates how hip hop is a contribution to remix culture since it takes pieces out of literate and oral cultures and transforms it giving it a life all its own.
Theresa Ennis
Film 115
Group 4 (Chris)
1) Afro-futurism is the American minority to have their way of creating media that is made for their culture. In the past the white American culture took blues and spirituals and re-mixed it into Rock and Roll. The same basic principal applies to rap. They took the basic fundamentals of jazz music and re-mixed it.
2) Literal Culture and Oral Culture are two completely different things. Oral culture are the Emcees that go to freestyling have very good improv skills and can usually get the crowd going. Literal culture is usually derived from people who write poetry and goes to open mic nights.
1 ) Afrofuturism is a way for the african-american culture (with the few representatives that they have: almost exclusively Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Steve Barnes, and Charles Saunders) to express to themselves. It also seems to be a way to create a new identity for themselves, as traces of their history has been somewhat hiddden from them.
2 ) Oral language is free. Literate language is fixed; its tangibility allows little freedom to change or update. Oral language, however, can flow much more easier, change with its surrounding events. There's also a huge amount of realism and naturalistic sounds within what is spoken over what is written.
`Eric Fritz - Group 3
Peter Holzinger
Group 1
1)Afro-futurism is the creation of a new movement in black culture that combats the dominance of a technological age tailored to the majority. This movement is takes into account exploitive past and a less than perfect present in order to project the direction in which blacks must go to rise above the poor hand history has dealt them. This projection is manifested through such media as comics, music, and literature that have experimental, futuristic, and electronic qualities to them. This allows blacks the opportunity to throw off the technological oppression that has forced them into robotic bodies meant only for building a society that does not belong to them so in order to construct a new body that is their own.
2) The primary difference in Sabol's essay between literate culture and oral culture is literate culture is static, and unchanging while oral culture transcends time and space and is flowing. Rather than just being beats accompanied by lyrics typed on a page, hip-hop is designed to be altered, reinvented, remixed, and broken down. The freestyle element of hip-hop begs for a constant invention of new words, subject matter, ryhmes, and rythmes. The nature of hip-hop beats along with the advent of digital technology has given the musical components of hip-hop a bendable, duplicable, mixeable potential. Together these present an opportunity that is the essence of remix.
1.) Unlike the disconnection of humanity from themselves we have been discussing, the ideas of afrofuturism address african american's feelings of disconnectedness from culture itself. Afrofuturism, whether through music (Afrika Bambaataa, George Clinton, Herbie Hancock), writing (Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Mileston Media) or art (Rammellzee) seek to bridge the gap that african american culture has with culture as a whole.
2.) The main difference in literate and oral culture seems to be rules. In a literate culture you are held down by the written word. And once something has been written, it can not be changed, and probably should not be changed either. Literate culture gives credit to those who write their ideas, and you should not steal those ideas or use them anything other than what they are. In an oral culture everything is fluid. There is no written history, and if there is one you can use it as though it was oral culture. In an oral culture, you can flip ideas, add your own twist and "re-mix" it however you like.
The discussion of hip-hop as oral culture, comes off as a perfect analogy. Especially when thinking of sampling. Sampling was the evolution of the turntablist culture, and hearing songs by the likes of James Brown or George Clinton underneath someone else's voice as the rap about elements of life, politics or culture that might not fit those intended by the original composer of the music is the very definition of re-mix.
The first article throws the term Afro-Futurism around, my understanding is that, Afro-Futurism is used to keep the black community where they are. It doesn't seem like this is helping to deplete the distance between races, nor does it seem to further separate them. In my eyes this does nothing, and it doesn't seem like this supposed "disembodied" culture wants to be main stream. Whites distance blacks just as much as black distance whites, if true equality is ever going to rain then both sides must put down their shields.
Oral culture is off the cuff, changes with each new scenario. Adapting to the target audience, time of day, and over all circumstances, much more dynamic than written text. Written or Literate culture is frozen in time, written once and stays that way. Good for keeping records but, dull for the audience. Rap is a mix of the two medias, written lyrics with improvised lyrics intertwined. A true remix.
~Kurt Sensenbrenner
group 3
The way I see Afro-futurism is in the science fiction machinist genre. It is tightly based on music, specifically techno, which is inversely tied to futuristic ideas and present day ideas of the sounds of machinery. How I see it figuring into technology and disembodiment is through the music. Music is a way of presenting yourself, without you. The mechanical sounds and beats act as your voice and opinions. This would be another area of disembodiment for our discussion as I saw the previous as being more for the good of the person using it. Now it could be used more as a statement to influence the public.
The difference that I see between literate and oral culture as shown by Sobol's article is in the presentation. In literate culture it is up to the reader to interpret how the words should sound. Through hip-hop and MCing, you get the emotion of the speaker in the form of political and social statements. I guess that is how it is a form of re-mix. In essence, the subject matter is re-mixed by every artist that uses it. It is more often than not portrayed differently by each artist then re-mixed again to twist it even more.
Derrick Markowski - Group 3
1. Afro-futurism to me is how the African-American culture has and still will adapt to the western culture. African-American’s decent came to the western culture by force not choice. Mark Dery gives us the idea the more African-American’s should be writing Sci-fi novels or even directing/writing Sci-fi movies because how it relates to them personally. Although segregation has been outlawed it seems that the segregation of the white man’s idea of the future and the Afro-futurism idea of the future are still very much so segregated. Both play a valuable role in the future but I believe that both together would create a better, more valued culture in our coming future. In a way I still don’t know how well African-American people have adapted to the western culture; still many African-Americans stand by their pride. Afro-futurism is related to technology/disembodiment by Dery referring to the ideas that African-Americans can play a major role in our future of technology/disembodiment. “But African-American voices have other stories to tell about culture, technology, and things to come. If there is an Afro-futurism, it must be sought in unlikely places, constellated from far-flung points.” (Mark Dery)
2. To me oral culture seems to be much more attractive than literate culture. Literate culture contains preplanned remarks, which is completely different from the oral culture. Freestyle hip-hop lets loose the thought of preplanned words and makes the person freestyling become an on the spot poet. Many of these artists have to be more talented than most people think. This is a major form of remix that the oral culture uses. These artists that need to come up with things on the spot take things from around them and rap about them. Or they will get ideas from other freestyle artists to make their lyrics work. Freestyle artists are all remix artists.
Colin Sytsma, 115, group 3
Michael Schafer Group 3
Afrofuturism, to me, is the black culture trying to be accepted into the western culture. Doing whatever they can through literature, music, etc to become part of the western culture. Kanye West's latest CD, Graduation, is the latest attempt to be accepted into the western culture. All of the songs except one use futuristic sounds, like lasers and other techno sounds, as beats. Throughout a playing of the whole album one almost feels transformed into the infinite. In an interview about the album before it came out Kanye stated he wanted to transcend the normal rap song into something more universal. Dance clubs and other clubs play this kind of music all of the time. He has started reaching an audience that never listened to him before. He has began expanding into the western culture through his music. And so far I haven't heard anything bad about the album, whatever he did it must have worked.
Afrofuturism is the way the future, technology and science fiction, is seen through an African Americans perspective. It’s the way the African American culture is conveyed and a way of seeing things other than from the usual white males vision. Like when talking about science fiction Dery states to him their race is seen as “the descendants of alien abductees”. Also to envision what the future will be like and what part an African American will have in it.
To me oral culture is spoken words with a musical beat mixed with it aka rap. Or sometimes there doesn’t have to be music like freestyle rap the artist just makes it up as you go along. The artist uses their own language, like how rappers often use slang in their songs, not everyone knows what they mean but they do. Literate culture isn’t so free and doesn’t have the same individuality as oral culture does.
A. Gray
Group 4
1. Its hard to understand what exactly Mark Dery inteads as the meaning of Afro-Futurism, but from my take on his words I think he's trying to say that Afro-Futurism is: White Science Fiction writers writing stories that our oddly parrellel to the African American issues of racism in the 20th century, therefore it can be assumed that they get their inspiration from blacks reacting in our 20th century technoculture world. I want to stress on the word 'assumed' because this seems to be merely the basis of Dery's opinion. Perhaps the oppression of robots, or clones, is similar in a few traits to African American slaves, but I dare say that these are only minor traits and if you search long enough you'll find the same/similar connection to any race.
2. All language evolves, but there's no doubt that Oral culture evolves at a much quicker rate then that of Literature culture. Hip Hop uses language that most often don't graze the pages of your average Webster's Dictionary, or a least by the meaning intended in the song; and if its not in the Dictionary most often its not in true litature. It'll be a long time, if ever that'll we'll see the word 'Shizzle' or 'Skeet' in the dictionary. Even if you exclude the made up words that hip hop often takes on, think of all the extra meanings that rap puts out. At want point or another the word 'Bill' was only A. Someones name, B. The Beak of a bird, or C. The visor on a hat; rap culture has given 'Bill' a whole new definition that of ' a one hundred dollar Bill'. This hip hop remix culture is influenced by the Oral culture, something far beyond that of the Literature culture.
David Ebner- Group 3
Afrofuturism is describing African American culture in fiction using a context of modern or more advanced technology. Basically think of current techno-culture as we know it and describe that from the viewpoints of African Americans. Afrofuturism can be tied into disembodiment and through technology as well. The only difference here is through what angle it affects culture. The article goes into detail how disembodiment affects music. It even goes as far as to describe how African Americans have taken their place in the new genre of Techno music.
The main difference between oral culture and literate culture is how they are transferred or shared. Literate culture is often written and copied on concrete media so others can read and acquire whatever has been transcribed. In a way it is mainly static. Oral culture isn’t written down. It must be shared and experienced in real time. This type is more dynamic and open for change and can be added whenever it is available. Hip hop can combine these forms. This is really the whole concept of sampling. An artist takes something that exists like a piece of music and adds it as a background track to supplement an artist rapping.
Afro futurism is the rebelling and expressing of African Americans being forced into Western culture. Their creations of music and art show their true identitity, the identity that has been hidden throughout history and conveys them as robots rather than individuals.
The difference between literate culture and oral culture is that literate culture conforms to a certain set of rules and boundaries. It has the ability to grow, but in a way that is more uniform and thought out. Oral culture is a way of thinking beyond. It is unlike literate culture in that you may not have time to think and you speak, but what comes out can be a fluid and meaningful arrangement, but with words a literate culture may not necessarily have used. This contributes to hip-hop as a form of remix in that oral culture is using the words of a literate culture, but instead of being confined to a page, it takes these words and builds them into things that can be straightforward and anonymous at the same time.
Eddie Roberts, Group 2
1) I see afro-futurism as a discard of the past. Creating through music, liturature and even film another plane of culture that hasn't been reached yet. Carving the African-American niche that is not the repressed minority, with a history of slavery, but a mass of beats, grooves, philosophy that exists beyond that. Funkadelic, as they say is gone on the mother ship floating above everything and in it's own world. I think Afro-Futurism is an attempt to escape the confines of the African-American reality (past and present) and to create another existence one that is more connected with their true African past and reach another plane of possibilities, and potential.
2) Oral culture discounts the formality of literate culture. It is the antithesis in many ways. You might encounter and immerse yourself into oral culture on a street corner for ten minutes, or at a concert for an hour where you are brought together with others through the words and flow of the rapper, or beat-boxer. Spontaneity is the main ingredient in freestyling, which is the most coveted from of Oral/ rap culture. There are no page numbers, meter, nor grammar check. In fact you are praised for your play with rhyme and meter, hitting odd notes and mixing and matching others. This was alive with jazz and the bebop phrasing. Timing and structure were largely thrown out the window for your innovating riffing on the beat. This Oral culture breaks the confines of what is possible creatively in literate culture. It will always evolve and adapt, and break even it's own conventions.
In afro-futurism, the thinkers and artists see science and technology, etc as a means of exploring the black experience. From my understanding of the article, it seems to be a way of blacks to express their “side of the story” on technology. One of the things I see as a primary difference between literate and oral culture is how quickly oral culture changes. Oral culture consists of slang and how different parts of the world refer to things using an array of words. In hip hop, there are so many words that have been created and put out into the world. Rappers and hip hop artists create a ridiculously large amount of words and catch phrases in their songs. For example, did anyone really talk about getting “crunk” until it was talked about in songs? Did you hear anyone saying “what? Ok. Yeah!” until Lil John started saying it all the time? I think this contributes to re-mix because everyone is always coming up with new slang and terms to say and throw around that someone else hasn’t started. Maybe it adds to the song they re-mix and maybe it doesn’t but they try it anyway. That’s part of what makes rap and hip hop what they are. It makes the songs stick in our head when there’s those random, spontaneous words and phrases.
-Sarah Myszewski group 3
Afro-Futurism is a parallel to science fiction writing. Many science fiction novels are based on advanced technology and not being able to control it. Afro-Futurism is like that today, lots of advanced technology, but technology in which the majority of black culture does not have access to. I like the quote about how Afrika Bambaataa embraced techno music. He embraced it because of "an understanding of themselves as already having been robots." Like it also says in the essay: "they were labor for capitalism, that they had very little value as people in this society."
I think the biggest difference between literate and oral cultures is the emphasis. Literate culture places emphasis on the material, where oral culture places emphasis on the performance itself. Oral culture is like techno and hip-hop music. Both of these frequently sample other music, but take it and create something original and quite different from the sampled music. Re-mix to these cultures is also different. In an oral culture it is acceptable to take other's work and use it, where in a literate culture this is copyright infringement. I liked the quote in "Flippin' the Script": "Copyright did not exist as a concept until print made the copying of writing possible".
Joe Simanis (Group 2)
Afro-Futurism, in its entirety, is composed of the desires for blacks in the western culture to come to terms, in a sense, with not only their history in western culture, but also their birth into western culture. Here we have a race of human beings who were, essentially, America's first human machines. They did what they were asked to do, when they were asked to, and they didn't complain. When they did not work to their owner's content, they were beaten physically, sexually, and emotionally. Afro-futurism portrays their intent as a race, for the future. We see that they predict a day when the machines that the ruling classes have created will overthrow them. One has to wonder though, if these machines are in any way connected to the blacks, perhaps even serving as direct metaphor for the blacks.
Literate culture is formal, to be compared to traditional fine art, however, as modernism has progressed, oral tradition has began to thrive as we see the eruption of hip-hop culture we note that the originals are not always the best. Sometimes its a remix that's better. Here we see rap artists take numerous songs and transform them into their own, but at the same time we hear rap artists create their own songs from scratch. It is similar to such early modernist art pieces as the urinal. It's jarring for many 'literary intellects' to accept rap and hip-hop culture because it breaks rules and dishevels some pieces of writing that took years to make in literally a spur of the moment.
Troy Key
Emir
Group 1
This subject made me start wondering of what all media is based off of. I couldn't figure out if it was language or if it was sight. In this case it seemes to be based more on language. In Afro-futurism, we see how black culture is taking their own role in further advancing technology and media. We seethis happening to day with hip-hop culture. Hip-hop is a wide range of music which contain many different styles of music mashed together. This truely shows the remix culture is more prominent than ever. But if we look more at the black culture's role in this, African-Americans are becoming more powerful than ever throughout history through media. The suppressed minority is becoming more widespread and looked at by mny different cultures. Which brings us in to the future and the concept of Afro-futurism. This brings upon the question of the black culture's role in a futuristic/sci-fi world. Will they continue their evolution of popularity and power?
Oral culture is ever-changing. New words are made, pronounced, and add meanings and at times lose meanings. Hip-hop reflects this culture because it plays with and molds language into a rhythmic poetry. Unlike other genres, words can be said at a wide range of speeds due to the clashed genres that make up hip-hop. Remixes and samples give hip-hop artists to appeal to even more of an audience due to the multiple songs in the track. Language is meant to be experimented with and can be used in infinately possible ways.
Jake Thorn - Group 4
Hayley Schneider – Group 1
1) After reading the article, this is what I came to an understanding of. I think that Afro-futurism is a world without racism and discrimination. I think that African Americans are looking to have an equal world where they do not have to worry about being treated differently because of their color or history. History is just that and needs to be moved on from in order for everyone to be treated equally.
This may fall into our conversations about technology because of the new technology taking over for the previous technology. The old technology is similar to the African Americans of the past with racism and discrimination. The new technology is the Afro-futurism that one day hopes to be the better of the two and help the world is a better place.
2) The main difference between literate and oral culture is that oral culture is a form of expression that is not what people would call grammically correct. Artists of hip-hop use emotions and heat of the moment phrases and don’t worry about if the structure of the lyrics is correct grammically. They use words that are not in the dictionary and put half sentences together. This is a form of music and does not make them wrong; it is just the way the words flow with the music.
This can help our understanding of hip hop because we know the words and sentences are not going to be correct and since we know that we can concentrate on the meaning and emotion behind the song. We can try to understand where the artist is coming from and the point that he or she is trying to get across.
1) "Hack this: Why do so few African-Americans write science fiction, a genre whose close encounters with the Other---the stranger in a strange land---would seem uniquely suited to the concerns of African-American novelists?" this is the quote that starts out an article by Mark Dery. To me the answer to that question would be that Afro-Futurism is the more personal version of science fiction, the one that allows the African-American culture, one so unnatural to the western world that we live in today to be an integral part of it. This is a case of juxtaposition to me, since western world cut out a piece of African culture for itself. Afro-Futurism is waiting for when just like any other culture of the past, the American culture fully absorbs the results of its conquest and will treat it like it is its own child. Afro-Futurism uses the lessons of the past to look forward to its much brighter future.
2) The oralists built their culture upon improvisation, the flow of their lyrics and music was inspired by what they felt at the moment. They are free of the restrictions that are normally imposed by writing and they are able to create based on what they feel and how they feel it. Oral culture frees poetry from its restrictions and allows it to flow with the feelings of its narrator.
Gleb Sergeyev
Group 1
Afro-futurism is a style of expression, or almost a way of life that is a push to bring the minority cultures forward into the technological mainstream and future. As a sort of byproduct of being minorities and being treated as minorities and not a equals, the vast majority of these people are not "in tune" with the technological society. As the reading said, most science fiction writers are white, and we can also see that much of the technological gate to the future and media is in the hands of the majority being controlled in ways the majority sees fit. This is where afro-futurism comes in, as a way for the minorities to move ahead, be heard, and bring their own style to the genre so dominated by the majority. It fits into the discussions of technology and disembodiment because it proves that no mater how disembodied and sterile technology can make us, there can still be cultural differences and influences in a seemingly homogeneous digital society.
The main difference between literate culture and oral culture is that in a literate culture the main focus is the words and the meanings of the combinations of those words and in an oral culture there is no specific rule for how words have to be used. Beat boxing is an example of a musical style that is immensely oral while at the same time it does not use actual words. Literary is more like poetry, with the oral style, that poetry can really be played with because its not necessarily the words that are important, its how the words sound together, tonally and rhythmically. This is especially prevalent in rap and hip-hop where rhythm, the remixing of rhythm, the breaking of rhythm, and emotional feeling are such a huge part. In a lyrical sense, hip-hop mixes a lot of literate snippets together to form an oral experience that carries meaning and feeling. This is how hip-hop culture is remixing literate and oral culture into their own sort of expressionism.
Toby Staffanson Group 4
Afrofuturism can best be described as a style and/or theme that connects with African-American concerns in the technological era of the 20th century. If often relates to fiction in many sorts and arrangements of media. Because of it's emergence in such a period of technological advancements, it is highly associated with the developments of society's evolution in the realm of machinery, and therefore, also into our discussions.
The difference between the two cultures is vast, but disorderly and therefore hard to discern from each other although the many limbs and subcategories of each society reach into everyday life and we may not even notice. The primary difference is almost as thus. We cannot notice every variation, but what we can acknowledge splits the cultures by means of social standings and class. "Literate culture" and "Oral culture" are two vast, yet very different cultures which affect very different societies and lifestyles. Sobol writes, "Words are just one sound source, used for effect when needed, but of limited importance." With this I understand that not every person can comprehend the meanings of either oral or literate culture. They are different worlds and affect different lives. That is why hip-hop music does not reach the positive characteristics that each person declares. Hip-hop music stretches from verbal to non-verbal, and varies greatly in it's style and for, disorderly switching from one style to another.
-Matthew Balz of the Group 3
I think in Mark Dery’s article, he makes “Afro-Futurism” seem more prevalent than one would believe it to be. At the end of the article, Dery says, “African-American culture is Afrofuturist at its heart, literalizing Gibson's cyberpunk axiom, "The street finds its own uses for things." I think this is the sole concept of “Afro-Futurism” because it shows how the African-American culture is constantly remixing things we use. Since the street finds it own uses and purposes for things, it is in a sense remixing the culture we live in, to create their own new African-American culture. I think the line about how earlier African-American musicians works are already considered afrofuturism really shows how this style of re-mix has already been around for quite some time.
As far as the subject matter of John Sobol’s article, the biggest difference I see between the literate and oral culture is the re-mix of language itself. In oral culture slang plays a huge part in the way we talk and as I see it’s relation to hip-hop music, we can just look at it as a re-mix of the English language, inviting us to see new ways we can use words or change them.
Max Larsen
Group 3
Nacia Schreiner- group3
1.)Afrofuturism is the projection of African American future based off of their often times forgotten importance in the past. One of the opening statements in this essay described African Americans as being abducted aliens. Not, of course, from outer-space but instead from a different part of the world. They, like the concept of “space” aliens, were prodded at, enslaved, used and spat out. But because African Americans do not have a pure past that has not been destroyed by the abductees, then the projection of future “must be sought in unlikely places, constellated from far-flung points”. In regards to disembodiment and technology, we can see how futurism told through African Americans is used as a tool to define them because the past was unable to have been fully expressed by use of technology.
2.) The difference found in oral culture and literate culture is as follows: “…predominantly black hip-hopping youth are intoxicated with words, and predominantly white techno-obsessed youth have abandoned words and embraced a musical movement…” (127) according to Sobol’s essay. The literate culture brings its members together through the rhymes, word play and meaningful lyrics while the oral culture feeds off of musical accompaniment to often times meaningless words. Even though both are remixed musical sound waves borrowed from early jazz and techno, they are interpreted in different ways from different cultures.
The concept of afro-futurism is artists exploring the black experience through means of science, technology, and science fiction. Afro-futurism is the idea of African Americans feeling disconnected from the culture that they live in. The point of afro-futurism is to connect what African American culture has with the culture of such things as science fiction, so that many things can be learned from each other’s culture. Another way of looking at is that afro-futurism is a way of the African American culture to be connected with that of the western culture. Mark Dery tells us that African Americans should write more sci-fi novels or direct more sci-fi films because this is something they can relate with, but what Dery doesn’t realize is that the idea of the white man’s future differs from that of the afro-futurism. Clearly both have a future in our society but it would be better for the two cultures to be together so that we can create a better future for our culture. The primary difference between literate culture and oral culture is how they are shared with the rest of the world. Literate culture is more based off of a written media that can be handed down in written records throughout the history of the culture. Oral cultures does not involve any writings, everything is passed along through speech. All records of history of the culture are told through stories that can be handed down from family to family. This contributes to hip hop music as a form of re-mix because hip hop combines these forms into a perfect re-mix culture.
Mike Terrill
Group 4
Afro-futurism is an attempt made by African-Americans to come to terms with the place they have been born. Many of the things these people have done are claimed by other races. African-Americans were taken from their country by the white man who, in turn made the African-Americans work the fields, pick cotton and keep their mouths shut. Afro-futurism, to me at least, is this idea of looking for a future for those whose past has been "deliberately rubbed out."
Literate culture and oral culture are vastly different. Literate culture is bound to a set of rules, concrete once its done, not to be changed. Oral culture relies more on thinking on your feet, saying what you think without correcting it, using slang, even freestyling. Oral culture ultimately relies on the spontaneity of a performance that will never be the same twice. Hip-hop takes this to heart, relying on artists freestyling and keeping the crowd going with them.
Benj Gibicsar
Group 4
Afrofuturism is the relationship between african-american culture and technology/innovation. Afrofuturism isn't completely appearing in the film world. However, it has shown up in music, graffiti, and even comics. The idea of afrofuturism brings about the connection of new technologies and Black culture. Rammellzee's suit has an amazing amount of advanced technology and pyro-technics. Afrofuturism will grow a lot more hopefully. The idea of disembodiment in SF is also incorporated into afrofuturism, as african-americans are descendents of people abducted from their homes.
Literate culture is very formed and has rules and regulations. Oral culture is a wide open area with many mediums, that takes language and re-mixes it anyway an artists feels it should be re-mixed. This gives great understanding to hip-hop as a re-mix. Rappers take ordinary english language and turn it into a musical entity that often has broken words and slang. This "misuse" of english creates a whole new art and that is how hip-hop is a re-mix.
After reading Dery’s “Black to the Future” the concept of afro-futurism is basically Blacks staking claim on the future. As a race, we have been disconnected from our past due to slavery and even from the culture of today. We often are unrepresented in all types of media unless it’s to play the token black person who will die in the Horror film or have one line in the Sci-Fi. What Dery is stating is that we need to set a place in history by writing books, about the future and think about tomorrow because we need something to connect us to the majority of everyone else. I definitely agree with Dery as I’ve noticed that with technology, there is this disembodiment with being black. To be honest, most of us don’t have the money, to spend on the technology that is hot now and even when we do save money and get it, a few weeks later something else comes along. So there’s a disembodiment of not feeling like one’s fitting based on technology. I myself, for example feel sometimes the distance when people talk about how they have all this computer equipment to do their films or how they’re able to afford the newest digital camcorder. I can’t relate because I’m using other people’s things, I’m saving money to be able to use it.
The difference between literate culture and oral culture is that literate is written down, after a thought process. Someone has an idea and writes it out and plans how they want to say it. With oral, there may be sometimes where you write it down and it flows. The grammar doesn’t matter because you’re not following conventions when you’re writing it to later speak or you’re speaking it. Also oral can just come like a lightening and it can happen so fast. Hip-hop is a form of re-mix because it’s the beat of drums, a bass and someone can just go from there. Someone can instantly get lost in the world and come up with the greatest story about their pain from losing their mom or whatever. With hip-hop, you can use parts of another person’s song and have it sound great, or terrible. That’s the great thing about how you’re able to remix and play around with a song and make it your own.
Veronica Mosley Group 4
Afro-futurism is the perpetuated style of the black man. Music and media will be changed and reformed by black men as it always has been. It will then be accepted by the mainstream. This is clear in both essays, Dery and Sobol, that techno music was created by black men and adopted by white adolescents. Techno began as sound and body, which is an African music characteristic. It is now more popular among white kids. As Sobol says, words used to be the medium for whites and movement used to be the medium for blacks. Now it has switched: black rappers throw words into music and white ravers dance to wordless music. Black men figure out how to mess with the music technology to produce a remix that is picked up by everybody, thus uniting people based on what they like, not on where they came from. I think that Afro-futurism has nothing to do with disembodiment: anyone who likes the music will come together with others who like the music. Black rappers don't have an all black crowd. Black DJs don't have all black dancers. If anything, these movements are simply perpetuated by the same people, black men. But everyone is being brought together.
The obvious difference between literate and oral culture is that one is written and read and the other is listened to and is interactive. Another historical difference is that basically African culture was passed down orally and was easily changed because of that. White Europeans passed down history on paper and tablets so that it could not be changed. With these descriptions, however, oral history seems the more personal. As oral stories change between generations, each storyteller incorporates the present, relevant topics, and their own personal edge. This is a form of remix. Oral histories and stories around the fire were changed slightly to give a personal spin; that's remix. And seeing as how it makes the story more personal and relevant to the present, then remix doesn't seem like such a bad thing. In Sonic Outlaws, the government wants to restrict usage to a large degree. But we see that Negativland is just trying to use what they've heard and expand on that and open up minds. But once something is recorded, that's literate culture and it isn't as flexible.
-Julianne Arnstein G4
The idea of Afro-Futurism was an inevitable series of events, that will lead up to results. Why would the idea of science fiction appeal to African American writers? What quality does this genre have that an average African American can relate to. In America, minorities have become alienated. Afro-Futurism will be the result from the use of these technologies, and rivals of race working with or against each other.
Literate culture is twisted and contorted as time goes on. With branches and elements of similar conventions being produced. Both worlds of oral culture and literate culture are similar. In the world of the literate they are held down by documents and paper. What is written is final, and later will have to be recomposed to fit the current times. Oral culture is constantly changing. It is a network of combusting ideas and arguments. Hip-hop has a sense of permanent nature, but also changes as its oral culture changes over time.
Jacob Feiring
Group 2 (Emir)
Afro-futurism can be looked at as an attempt of a minority, in this case black
culture, to cope with their forced assimilation into another culture. It refers to the black culture that was forced into American culture when they were taken against their will from their homelands. It’s an effort to resolve qualms with this forced deportation and adapt to new surroundings and way of life. Afro-futurism is an allegory for this, taking the sci-fi theme and equating it to the concept of forced assimilation.
As Dery writes “This is especially perplexing in light of the fact that African-Americans are, in a very real sense, the descendants of alien abductees. They inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done to them…”
Afro-futurism brings the idea to the forefront of a minority living in a foreign land and space in time. It equates to a feeling of isolation and separation from society. This
relates to our discussions of technology and disembodiment as we have investigated this semester, how technology can lead to feelings of isolation when humans become disposable. As technology progresses many people feel like they are in a foreign place as they feel to understand this new world.
The difference between oral and literature culture lies in their ability to improvise. The oral culture utilizes improvisation and the “remix” constantly. Oral culture is found in hip-hop and constantly changes.
Sobol attests to this explaining that "the best rappers are fantastic improvisers-freestylers-extemporizing lyrics to extreme semantic and rhythmic complexity in fiery public competition. Rappers employ call-and-response. Rappers make liberal use of slang. Rappers blur distinctions between speech, chant, and song. Rappers celebrate non-semantic vocalizing (that is, beat-boxxing. They are oralists."
On the other end of the spectrum is the literature culture that doesn’t change. The words written on a page, when performed generally stay the same and are tied down to the structure, whereas oral culture thrives on change.
Jon Phillips
Group 3
1.Afrofuturism is used by Mark Dery to describe the African American people's integration of their culture into a Western one, by using science fiction, a genre with many of the same characteristics as African American culture, kind of like the opposite of Rock and Roll (wherein whites took elements from black spirituals and jazz and made their own style out of it).
2.Oral culture is malleable, while literate culture is fixed and unable to be changed. Oral culture is obviously employed by hip-hop in things like rap battles and freestyle, and can be changed depending on the mood or events going on at the time. Literate culture is immutable and events must be shaped for it (poetry readings, for example)
When I was reading about what Afro-Futurism was it was hard for me to really understand what the writer was saying. What I got from the article was that Afro-futurism is a connection, an outlet, and a space for African-Americans to embrace for themselves and also get what they feel, what they represent out there for everybody. Mark Dery says in his article that more African – Americans should use Sci-fi as a genre to explore and to get their message across. The idea of alien abductions, being in a strange place with strange people, some of who hate you because you are only yourself; should fit like a glove for African-Americans because they have lived this in one way or another. Afro-futurism seems to me many things, a future of racial equality, and a future where African Americans are no longer robots but actual people, but also a future was blacks and whites are no longer tolerating each other, but actually accept each other.
Oral culture is a free expression of the artist when it comes down to it, what is going on is that the artists is making a play on original music using slang and play on words, rhyme, and melody. Thus transferring old music to something new, a new platform for that artists and other like them to make their own. Literal culture is a static, unchanged, classic form of expression this would be something that kept to poetry, sonnets, or other classical forms of writing. Slang and remix don’t seem to have a place here. But the remix is making this more possible as it can apply to most anything. That is the point of a remix to change something into something else. Make something new.
Matt Gonia group1
Afro-Futurism is one minority forced into another culture by taking them away from their natural habitat and making them coexists in another. Dery discusses how no African Americans write science fiction and is white based. But it’s shocking because they can best relate to that genre. They are strangers in a strange place. Dery also talks about afro-futurism can be described as the black man’s perspective of the future. Black’s adapting to technology has made them more in tune with life. Afro-futurism can be seen as the black man’s science fiction because it discusses the black man’s role in the future since the actual science fiction is a white-based future.
Oral culture is expressing one self through speaking and communicating with the audience you are speaking too. Hip-hop and rap uses oral culture to express feelings through song. It is like poetry but speed up and sung. Improv is used and makes the poetry for hip hop and rap more original. It is a carefree form of poetry with no worries about spelling or correct grammar it is a go with the flow type of poetry and oral presentation. By remixing songs they create a new form of oral culture and expression. Artist have to find new ways of expression and go beyond just what an audience is familiar with so by remixing they bring familiarity with a new flavor to it.
-Judith Marker-
Group 1
1) Afro-futurism, like many of the topics we’ve discussed this semester, deals with specific persons or peoples attempt to salvage or create their own ‘identity’. Though many of the crises of identity we have looked at deal with the present, and evolution into future, Afro-futurism also incorporates the element of past in the development of a ‘present’ culture. Many peoples’ personal identities are highly influenced by their past lineages and their past cultures. This creates a unique circumstance for African-Americans, who draw influence not only from African roots, but also the ‘white” culture that many Afro-futurist feel it has, overtime (and not by choice) been installed on their hard-drives in a manner of speaking. This creates an ‘identity’ dilemma for many blacks in America who have been constructed and greatly influenced by a culture and nation that they themselves do not feel apart of. "Adopting 'the robot' reflected a response to an existing condition: namely, that they were labor for capitalism, that they had very little value as people in this society. By taking on the robotic stance, one is 'playing with the robot.' The Afro-futurist goal is not to hide from or deny their current identity and its ‘uninvited’ influences, but instead to look to the past to evolve and create a new, unique identity in the future.
2) Literate culture, in its most simple form, is formal, official, text that is recorded and limited to the bounds of the generations and time in which it was created. It is concrete and after it is recording it simply is. It may be factional or reflect what was considered fact in certain time periods. Oral culture, on the other hand, is bound to nothing. It is mashed, molded, interpreted, re-interpreted, destroyed and re-born. It’s meaning comes not from an official thought, but in the way it is interpreted and expressed by the mind and mouth of the individual, any individual who happens to absorb it. Oral–culture applies to hip-hop, a genre of music that has no limit to its instruments, meters, grammar, and shape. It can borrows riffs and dialogue from mediums that have no relation the song in itself. It uses slang and unconventional and unlimited structures to build a genre that has, like oral culture, no bounds
Afro-futurism is just like any other look at the future, except it focuses on the future of specific race, and in that focus we can see the troubles and hardships of the black race. By building a story of a afro-futurism, we can see not only how the black race wants to be, we can also see how they view their past by what symbols and things they bring about in story, as well as what subjects they shy away from or don't want to be. By painting a picture of the future, we can better understand what the wants and needs of the african american race are, which may help to let the viewer better understand the race.
I could not log on to see the second article, for some reason it did not work for me. If i could get access to it i would like to read it and post a blog later. can i do that?
sorry
Noah Therrien
Group 4
Reading Dery’s “Black to the Future” has taught me a lot about the concept of afro-futurism. I feel that it is best described as a way Blacks plan to be part of the future. The African American has been disconnected from the majority of American society due to their past status as slaves and the cultural repercussions of that atrocity. They are unrepresented in most modern media. I think Dery’s stating that Blacks need to set a place in history by creating their own media. Dery’s wants blacks to write books, make movies, make their own impact on popular media. He feels that this is the only way blacks can establish themselves in American society. I agree with Dery’s analysis. However, I also believe that black people must feel a sense of disembodiment from the media, I think this is caused by the lack of established resources that the white culture has available to them. This difference in technological resources creates a barrier that that must be overcome.
Language is the way we communicate and as the article suggests there are two forms of language; oral and literate. Oral language is best described as free. Literate language is more fixed. Oral language, however, can flow much easier, change with its surrounding events. Oral language is a more truthful reflection of those speaking it. There's tremendous amount of realism within what is spoken over what is written. However, the permanence of literate language is its greatest strength. As modern society becomes more fast paced, more artificial, I believe that oral language will become more and more relevant. This can already be seen in modern music, hip-hop is about the improvisation and free creation of music.
Matt Smaglik
Group 1
In my opinion, "Black to the Future" makes a valid arguement. It's true, you really don't see many African American science fiction writers; even though they would know the feeling of alienism best of all (according to Dery). I think what is meant by Afro-futurism is this idea that African American concerns about technology are relevant in the developement of technology as a whole. Not necessarily for making vast improvements or highly advancing strides, but to make it an open area for African Americans to comment, hypothesize, engage, and participate in. The example that Dery brought up from the past was in regard to techno music, and the crusiality of African Americans in making it spread and become a genre. (One that everyone is familiar with). I think this would correlate with current discussions on technology and disembodiement because not only does it warrant African Americans expanding thier role in technology, but it also states that the ones who have expressed a technology-inspired interest generate interesting and creative things that can apply to the current audience in a new way (of being disembodied).
As far as Sobol's article is concerned, I found his distinction between oral and literate culture very interesting. Towards the end of 'Four Oral Elements' he uses the word kinetic to describe oral culture. It makes perfect sense, when you think about it, because it literally is always moving. He doesn't hold literate culture in a high regard, which, with respect to his argument that hip-hop needs to keep moving makes sense; however I wonder how he would feel about that literate history had it been removed from his life. Anyways, the oral culture idea corresponds to the thought of hip-hop as remix very well, as Sobol cites several examples of 'young black kids' taking what they had and making it their own, i.e., the turntables or spoken word poetry evolving into rap.
Fundamentally, the general concept of Afro-Futurism is the minority’s refusal to conform to western cultures traditions. Inevitably some aspects of western culture’s customs will become commonplace but with afro-futurism the American minorities attempt to carve out and generate a form of media that is specifically targeted for their culture. The purpose of creating this realm of media is not to necessarily disassociate with western culture, but to rather reach a happy medium and bridge the large gap between the two.
The obvious difference between literate and oral culture are the static and dynamic qualities. Literate culture is often very predictable in the sense of, once it is written it is, for all intensive purposes, final. On the other hand oral culture is continuously changing. There will always be some new aspect incorporated whether it is in dance, music, poetry, etc. With oral cultures dynamic attributes it can help us to understand the concept of hip-hop as a form of remix. Essentially hip-hop is the collaboration of many different elements that come together to form a collective product. Often times, depending on the artist’s moods and feelings these different elements can be altered to change the meanings of the song entirely.
Sorry-
AshLeigh Brown Group 2
I understand "afro-futurism" to be the fight against the rising western culture and the interpretation of the african-american preception of what appears to be a white dominated SciFi genre. Afro-futurism harnesses the oppression of past cultures to adapt to growing technology. It is able to provoke creativity towards their own culture as it seems.
Oral Culture is a spontaneous, free style of literal culture. It is not necessarily thought out most of the time, but is able to express emotions and conceptions conceived by the artist. Literal culture is more rehearsed and practiced, written up and presented. It is something more commonly seen at an an open mic night or poetry readings, allowing the individual to more easily get their organized thoughts out of their heads and into the ears of others.
Tyler Hudson
Group 1 (Emir)
Afro-futurism is the ideas of the African American’s future. It is and expression that is made by them, for them. It traces their past and present and makes way for the future. The Harlem Renaissance was one movement that brought forth music, literature, and other media from the African American sub-culture. Afro-futurism is the same deal but in a new time. They take the available media of the time and spin it their way, the way African Americans want to do it.
I think the primary differences between oral culture and literature is the freedom of the oral element. Literature can be tweaked and edited, but once on the page, it is locked in for what the author meant at that specific time. Oral culture is always changing, with new vocabulary and new meanings. It is much easier to see the progression of culture listening to a song from now, and a song from ten years ago. I don’t see the same thing as prevalent in reading a book ten years apart.
Afrofuturism to me seems to be a term used for African Americans rising up and creating original and new, innovative ideas that affect our pop culture in a big way. I get that sense due to the fact that we went along and listed people like Herbie Hancock, Jean-Michel Basquiat, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Grandmaster Flash, and Lee "Scratch" Perry. These are all African Americans who were huge because of their original and unique ideas concerning music and art. Afrofuturism to me then of course means "Afro" referring to African or Afrocentric and then "Futurism" which obviously means anything new and groundbreaking, or thoughts pursuing the creation of something original. When you listen to Herbie Hancock's "Rock It" you undoubtedly feel like technology is being pushed to create something truly original and new. You definitely get the sense that something groundbreaking is occuring when you watch the music video for it. When people saw those robotic legs dancing to his music in the 80s, it blew their minds. Same goes for George Clinton, when people saw Parliament Funkadelic on stage with George covered in feathers dressed like a chicken on acid and they heard what they were doing with their instruments, specifically electronic instruments like the synthesizer and keyboards, etc., they knew this was fresh and groundbreaking. Afrofuturism is any occasion where you see an African American truly creating something fresh and new typically with the use of technology.
As for the difference between literate and oral culture, I think stands between the fact that literary works are stuck on a page, whereas oral works bring writing right off of the page and allows for innovation and remix. Rarely do you find someone taking from someone's writings and creating something new in their own work since that would be called plagurism. But with music it works a little bit different. People are allowed to grab here and there and borrow ideas freely for the most part without being persecuted for "stealing" someone's ideas. If I were to write something and then it appeared word for word identical in someone else's work, that'd be ridiculous. Whereas in oral culture if I were to right a song and then someone came along and did a cover of my song, word for word, but slowed it down and completely changed the tempo and melody, then it's a different situation. Obviously hopefully I'd be recognized for creating the original, which doesn't always happen though. In fact I remember Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U" wasn't too great of a hit, but then Sinead O'Connor covered it shortly after and it was a huge hit. It took me until I was 17 when I started listening to Prince to even realize that. I would hope and assume though that Prince has no grudges for it because I'm sure permission was given to her and he respects any other artist that decides to use his music as inspiration.
ryan fox.
group two.
Jon Hillbo - Group 1
1) Afro-Futurism is the concept that in many ways, the worlds created in science fiction stories have actually happened to african americans in the past, such as the enslavement and birth in a land against their will, an oppressive ruling class that has done many historical inustices against them. This is the bases for many science fiction stories about future oppression by a higher technological group of beings, and being forced to adapt to it, to live with it, and even attempt to use it to your own advantage. The concept of robotic work was interesting as well, as that is essentially what slaves were forced to do, and yet one usually doesn't draw the parallels between robots and slaves, so it is an interesting point to aknowledge.
2) Literate culture describes stories set in stone, such as books and poems that are recited exactly as they were first written. Oral culture is more free style, with the performer or orater always adding their own ideas and improv into the mix. Oral culture can be likened to the ancient days in history where stories were passed down by word of mouth alone, and each time and each generation the performers added their own twists, the stories grew and matured over time. We can see this in modern remix culture, as old works can be edited and changed to address modern issues that the original story could never have "known" about, so to say.
Up until now, when we've discussed the topic of disembodiment, it has often been associated with a sense of fear. We've discussed how people are intrigued by the idea of non-human beings and their possible super-human abilities, but are also scared of how these beings could make actual humans obsolete. In the context of Afrofuturism, this fear seems to have been thrown out the window. Instead of fearing the idea of robots, the African-American community has embraced them. They have found a way to relate to this idea of the human controlled being, as they have spent a good part of their history in the same position. What is interesting about this, is the contrast in white culture's and black culture's reaction to this idea. It brings up another reason for which white culture has created a sense of fear around the disembodied: the same fear that kept slave owners from allowing slaves any freedoms. It is a fear of losing control.
I think the main difference between literate and oral cultures is the way in which they are documented. Literate culture is something concrete, something in writing that can be controlled and stabilized. Oral culture, on the other hand, is documented by people through words and sounds and stories, there is no way to contain it or to control it, information is not as stable. This is why the African-American community, which embraces oral culture, had no hesitation when it came to re-mixing music. They see songs and sounds as a part of oral culture, undocumented and free to be changed and reused. The main difference in the cultures lies in this idea, literate culture believes in the controlling of who can use a certain bit of information, and oral culture does not.
kristen gibb group 3
Mark Dery is a cultural critic who feels that the minorities in our western culture are oppressed through the development of our history and are constantly viewed as lower class. Afrofuturism is the attempt to reconstruct the way western civilization works. It is an effort to eliminate the racist propaganda that tries to persuade an ethnicity in performing the functions that the people in control don't want to do, like the way the Motown sound was developed in accordance with working in the factories for Ford. Nowadays though they use robots for these functions. If authorities of the society used propaganda to manipulate others into doing the work they would rather not do themselves because of the low pay; it shows how the western movement attempts to place races into the place that helped make their lives easier while life became or remained difficult for minorities. In some regards, Dery establishes a sarcastic movement towards becoming the future of the country by being the machines that will destroy the ruling class. At the end of the article he says this about Bill Gates. "What he describes as a deconstructionist ability to crack complex cultural codes goes by a better-known name, these days. They call it hacking." I think Dery makes a very good point about science fiction as well, the people most suitable to discuss the topic of being alien abductees would be best suited for African Americans to cover. Seemingly because this would be a more historical depiction of how the ruling class began developing our technological era, through mistreating others in an effort to use them as our staircase, without regarding their human qualities, to the world of imagination in science fiction. I think that their history places them as the disembodied technologies of the past, which we have since been replaced and still cannot come to a common agreement on the treatment of humans.
Literate culture and oral culture are two distinct representations of culture. Literate culture is the permanent texts that describe what our culture appears as. Whereas oral culture is based off of originality and performance within the spoken world. Literate culture is confined to the specifics of the location of an era and the way people viewed it. Spoken culture allows for the remix of ideas through innovation and improvisation and for physical embodiment with culture such as hip-hop and rap. Spoken culture has the ability to create new meanings for our literate culture to give it new life in our oral culture through remix.
--Nick Reindl GROUP TWO
Afro-futurism seems to utilize the fiction of the future as a release in order to ease old wounds. It seems that some African American Science fiction attempts to rectify the past through acts of vengence or reconciliation between races. I'm sure that some Afro-futuristic concepts thematically engage the principle belief that all men are created equal as well. Many of the same essential ideas are present in other races writing as well. Orwell uses the idea of a negative utopia to illustrate the injustices played out by socialist regimes (animal farm). The idea that all individuals are created equal, but some are more equal than other is a negative commmentary on society. I believe that despite race many different individuals can hold similar beliefs.
While oral language may be change more freely this does not mean that literary language cannot be just as easily changed.The oral language is often embedded in the print text during that period of time. Some regimes allow burning of books and the changing of history in order to curb the minds of its citizens. Try to look up tiananem square protests in China. Chances are the historical truths will be altered or not present at all.
-Brian Shea Group 4
i forgot to add my name and group before
Tony Lopez, Group 4
This movement of Black Afro- Futurism came from African Americans wanting to identify with something in this country that they are not from. This movement was followed by a lot of people in the seventies. I remember when my mom would show me clips of some of the artist music videos. She called it the funk and also told me about this is them, this is who they are. They took a culture that they were already in and redefined it by creating something that already existed, but then making it their own to identifies with. They remixed the culture with sci-fi and looked toward the future that they could create with this. These ties to Hip Hop, a movement that gave many people voices in the community. An outlet that let them engage in voicing their pain, their struggles, the ghetto, and also the good times. Hip Hop is a way of life, nit just one sided like so many people think. Many people think of it as a violent gangster glorifying form, which is considered rap. Rap is the spawn of Hip Hop where there are just people saying words to sale records that are being told what to say by record companies.
-Randal Jackson-
Afro futurism...
It seems to me to be a labeling of a trend that runs through nearly every culture. In this case, it is referring to Black culture, especially that in America. It is a method of viewing the future as a nearly blank slate, creating possible worlds and ways of living that cannot be proven wrong because they do not exist outside of the mind. It is a method of seizing upon that which none may truly control and making it into something that not only has a meaning for the present, but also allows for the past to be viewed in a way that contributes rather than restricts.
Literate vs. Oral culture. Easily opened up to be a subject of debate and argument related to race. Literate culture can be seen as that which treasures the physical and concrete documentation above all else. It treats that which has been set down as irrefutable fact and views all other forms of recollection or recounting as inherently unstable. If someone wrote a history of an event two hundred years ago, in this day it would be seen as definitive. Oral culture, however, is that which values interpretation over strict adherence to repetition of previous and identical themes. By passing a history through text or a written and codified method, one is consigning it to a limited interpretation. The passing of a history through unwritten, oral methods allows for the significance to be realized and adapted to each unique situation as it occurs.
...forgot again.
A. Robertson
Section 4
F 115
Afro-Futurism seems to be the idea that the black community must somehow accept their identity in Western culture, while always waiting for that day of retribution from their dark past. I think its very interesting how Dery comments on how there should be more black science fiction writers because of the nature of the genre.
Oral culture to me seems best compared with the art of freestyle rapping, this notion of improv and spontaneous creativity. Literal culture is more about poetry and writing.
Brian Dunigan
Group 1
“African-American voices have other stories to tell about culture, technology, and things to come.” The black community is saying- don’t forget about us! The cultural differences in our country have been around forever, yet everyone calls themselves “American.” Instead of bringing “both sides” together it’s time to create a melting pot. Mix cultures and exploit it through the media.
Literature culture is the traditional, Latin based, correct grammar, novel type writing, speaking literature. This is the type of culture that is taught to students all throughout school. The oral culture is “the remix” of the original literature culture. The complete changing of sentence structure and grammar that, even though it sounds different conveys the same meanings (most of the time)! The soul survival of hip/hop is because of the artistic value that the oral culture possesses. Not only can hip/hop words be re-mixed from their literature origins, but words can be said with no slang or re-mix and can have different meaning completely!
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