7.5.2014
Guillaume Dupetit: Afrofuturism and Representations
Long before anyone had given it a name, artists such as Sun Ra, Lee Perry and George Clinton already represented the first effervescence of Afrofuturism. Combining music and science fiction, their creations forced fantasy to fall within the bounds of reality.
The connections and perspectives of Afrofuturism extend in time and space, cross disciplines and specialties, and are both deeply rooted and constantly renewed. Although it is necessary to expound on the proposed definitions of the term, our main focus here will be on its application and exemplification. The objective here is not to define fixed contours or to measure the extent of the multiple ramifications embodied in the afrofuturistic discourses, but rather to provide some examples of what it can generate in terms of creation. This talk will explore Afrofuturism as a process of meaning creation in arts, a process of appropriation, combination, and disorientation that opens up new spaces for imagination and creativity.
‘Afrofuturism is an exploration and methodology of liberation, simultaneously both a location and a journey.’
Biography :
Guillaume Dupetit, musicologist, is a specialist of black popular music. For his PhD he orienteted his researches on Afrofuturism, a multidisciplinary movement that opens new perspectives to envision the representation and construction of identity, to push out the boundaries of imagination by a deep (re)consideration of the past and the future of African-American people. Previous topics of researches were “ The character of James Brown, his musical creation and his political and ideological implication toward the African-American community” and “ The musical collective of Parliament / Funkadelic”. He is now focusing on the connections between black music and science-fiction.