1
00:00:00,834 --> 00:00:03,168
♪ (frenetic music) ♪

2
00:00:09,424 --> 00:00:11,121
(applause)

3
00:00:13,616 --> 00:00:15,167
My talk

4
00:00:16,542 --> 00:00:19,251
[is] about Afrofuturism and the African.

5
00:00:20,451 --> 00:00:23,957
Afrofuturism is considered
what speculative fiction,

6
00:00:23,958 --> 00:00:27,397
myths, legends, science fiction,

7
00:00:27,398 --> 00:00:33,345
and the stories of that genre
are to African Americans,

8
00:00:33,346 --> 00:00:37,903
Africa, Africa of the Diaspora,
and black people in general.

9
00:00:38,709 --> 00:00:43,210
What Denenge Akpem refers it to is
what blackness looks like in the future,

10
00:00:43,215 --> 00:00:44,892
real or imagined.

11
00:00:47,100 --> 00:00:52,065
Now, the history of Afrofuturism
comes from America

12
00:00:52,083 --> 00:00:56,375
and was first coined
by a man called Mark Dery.

13
00:00:56,377 --> 00:00:58,893
When he started
talking about Afrofuturism,

14
00:00:58,894 --> 00:01:01,944
he talked about the idea of literature--

15
00:01:02,395 --> 00:01:05,197
so the books
that Octavia Butler would write

16
00:01:05,199 --> 00:01:06,938
and things like that--

17
00:01:06,939 --> 00:01:10,862
but then it also moved
into a new region, of music,

18
00:01:10,863 --> 00:01:14,490
so we would have people
like Sun Ra and George Clinton--

19
00:01:14,491 --> 00:01:18,168
but for me, especially Sun Ra because
he has a special place in my heart.

20
00:01:18,169 --> 00:01:22,640
He believed that he came
from the planet Saturn

21
00:01:22,641 --> 00:01:26,570
and came to Earth to spread
the message of love and peace.

22
00:01:27,409 --> 00:01:30,597
Like in his movie "Space Is the Place"

23
00:01:30,598 --> 00:01:34,908
he introduces the idea of alien

24
00:01:34,909 --> 00:01:38,162
to black people in America.

25
00:01:40,826 --> 00:01:44,044
But that was very specifically
about African Americans,

26
00:01:44,045 --> 00:01:48,486
and I wanted to find a place
for Afrofuturism in Africa.

27
00:01:48,879 --> 00:01:51,928
The first place that that led me
to is Mount Kenya, obviously,

28
00:01:52,545 --> 00:01:56,134
where the god of Mount Kenya lives
according to the Kikuyu tradition.

29
00:01:56,135 --> 00:01:59,084
So Mwene Nyaga is seated
on top of this mountain,

30
00:01:59,125 --> 00:02:04,125
and he introduced our Adam and Eve,
Gikuyu and Mumbi,

31
00:02:04,431 --> 00:02:07,109
and from that we're descendants
of the nine children.

32
00:02:09,024 --> 00:02:14,632
But even before the idea
of the myth of Gikuyu and Mumbi,

33
00:02:14,633 --> 00:02:17,247
the idea of Afrofuturism,

34
00:02:17,248 --> 00:02:21,707
or legends, and myths, and stories
were told to me by my mother.

35
00:02:21,708 --> 00:02:25,415
She is a great storyteller
as well as a pediatrician

36
00:02:25,416 --> 00:02:30,662
so I'd have to say that her stories
were truly science fiction, truly.

37
00:02:30,663 --> 00:02:31,887
(laughter)

38
00:02:31,954 --> 00:02:35,293
I remember her telling me stories
about the way if I ate the pumpkin,

39
00:02:35,294 --> 00:02:37,461
my hair would grow.

40
00:02:37,462 --> 00:02:39,995
Or if... --
which is strange --

41
00:02:40,625 --> 00:02:44,865
if I attach leeches to my nipples,
my breasts would grow.

42
00:02:46,578 --> 00:02:48,351
And also...

43
00:02:50,781 --> 00:02:51,850
I did it.

44
00:02:51,851 --> 00:02:52,956
(laughter)

45
00:02:54,197 --> 00:03:00,708
And also she would talk about the way
that in the Kikuyu tradition,

46
00:03:00,709 --> 00:03:03,293
if you circle the Mugumo tree seven times,

47
00:03:03,302 --> 00:03:04,884
you would change sex.

48
00:03:05,722 --> 00:03:08,616
Growing up, obviously,
past my mother's stories,

49
00:03:08,617 --> 00:03:12,546
I began to read stories of my own,
and they were inevitably filled

50
00:03:12,547 --> 00:03:17,442
with the ogre and the young girl
who wandered off into the forest,

51
00:03:17,443 --> 00:03:20,238
and what would happen
if she wandered off into the forest,

52
00:03:20,239 --> 00:03:22,202
and how she would meet this horrible ogre

53
00:03:22,203 --> 00:03:24,743
because she departed
from the ways of the society.

54
00:03:25,876 --> 00:03:30,989
That's also when I met Ben Okri,
and the idea of the spirit child,

55
00:03:30,990 --> 00:03:38,490
and the idea of using spiritualism
or mythical realism within storytelling.

56
00:03:39,238 --> 00:03:42,771
That, for me, is also
a link to Afrofuturism.

57
00:03:45,247 --> 00:03:48,496
But what really,
really inspired me about Ben Okri

58
00:03:48,497 --> 00:03:54,871
was his ability to merge seamlessly
the idea of the spirit world and fiction,

59
00:03:56,292 --> 00:03:59,830
and the idea that we live in a continent

60
00:03:59,831 --> 00:04:02,481
that is so closely linked
to the spirit world

61
00:04:02,482 --> 00:04:07,331
that we use it
in a very everyday sort of way.

62
00:04:07,332 --> 00:04:11,249
That is true
when we come to witch doctors,

63
00:04:11,250 --> 00:04:17,041
sangoma, or people who deal
with the spiritual realms.

64
00:04:17,732 --> 00:04:20,471
It's also true of genies of the coast,

65
00:04:20,471 --> 00:04:24,358
and I don't even know how many of you
have gone to Mombasa or Zanzibar,

66
00:04:24,359 --> 00:04:27,578
but I know from personal experience

67
00:04:27,579 --> 00:04:30,609
there was a cat that followed me
for five kilometers,

68
00:04:30,610 --> 00:04:34,570
or every time I turned around it was there
and I could have sworn it was a genie.

69
00:04:34,571 --> 00:04:37,136
I'm positive about it.

70
00:04:37,137 --> 00:04:39,879
In fact, I have friends
who attest to the fact as well.

71
00:04:40,815 --> 00:04:45,001
So Afrofuturism has always been
part of our culture, part of us.

72
00:04:46,256 --> 00:04:52,104
But more interestingly, it has been part
of the history of West Africa.

73
00:04:53,043 --> 00:04:57,208
West Africa believe --
especially in Mali,

74
00:04:57,209 --> 00:04:59,584
there is a nation
of people called the Dogon--

75
00:05:00,112 --> 00:05:01,572
and the Dogon people believe

76
00:05:01,584 --> 00:05:05,709
that they were told
about a planet called Sirius B

77
00:05:05,711 --> 00:05:11,485
before it was discovered
by Western scientists.

78
00:05:12,524 --> 00:05:15,683
They were told of this planet

79
00:05:15,684 --> 00:05:20,572
by a race of amphibian-like aliens

80
00:05:20,734 --> 00:05:25,437
who came in from the ocean

81
00:05:25,438 --> 00:05:28,338
and told them, not only about the planet

82
00:05:28,339 --> 00:05:33,844
but also about the rotation of the planet
and how it worked in space.

83
00:05:35,285 --> 00:05:38,016
Some of the cave drawings, like these,

84
00:05:38,017 --> 00:05:43,530
showed the amphibian creatures
at the bottom of the people,

85
00:05:43,531 --> 00:05:46,931
or the people who came
to speak to them about this planet.

86
00:05:46,932 --> 00:05:50,219
Then, later on, it was discovered.

87
00:05:50,220 --> 00:05:52,569
So they had the knowledge in 1930,

88
00:05:52,570 --> 00:05:56,373
but it wasn't until the 70s
that the actual planet was seen.

89
00:05:57,721 --> 00:06:00,492
If that isn't curious science fiction,

90
00:06:00,493 --> 00:06:02,579
history, I don't know what is.

91
00:06:04,042 --> 00:06:07,709
But also from South Africa,
we have people like Credo Mutwa

92
00:06:07,710 --> 00:06:13,745
who believes there is
a reptilian race of people

93
00:06:14,967 --> 00:06:20,235
whose bloodline extends
into modern day royalty

94
00:06:20,812 --> 00:06:23,423
and modern day business people

95
00:06:23,424 --> 00:06:28,481
and is what, I guess, theorists
would call The Illuminati.

96
00:06:30,574 --> 00:06:35,205
So we've established that fact--
fact or fiction--

97
00:06:35,587 --> 00:06:38,131
myths have always existed
very, very closely to us,

98
00:06:39,038 --> 00:06:42,572
but there's been a growing need
for the idea of Afrofuturism,

99
00:06:43,388 --> 00:06:46,376
and I'd have to ask why?

100
00:06:48,534 --> 00:06:52,850
And when talking about it,
I talked about it to a friend of mine,

101
00:06:52,851 --> 00:06:56,871
and he said,
"Africans are inherently futuristic,

102
00:06:56,872 --> 00:07:00,252
given the sheer capriciousness
of our present situation."

103
00:07:02,876 --> 00:07:06,210
That was my friend Michael Odhiambo
who reckons he's very clever.

104
00:07:07,158 --> 00:07:12,456
Then there was a writer called
David William Cohen who says,

105
00:07:12,457 --> 00:07:14,783
"The struggle of man against power

106
00:07:14,784 --> 00:07:17,485
is the struggle of man
against forgetting."

107
00:07:18,422 --> 00:07:20,151
This makes a lot of sense

108
00:07:20,152 --> 00:07:24,140
because it's been suggested
that Afrofuturism, as a genre, is growing

109
00:07:24,141 --> 00:07:28,170
because as Africans,
or as descendants of Africa,

110
00:07:28,171 --> 00:07:33,318
we've never had a space or a voice
within our own history.

111
00:07:33,324 --> 00:07:36,218
We've never had a chance
to talk about our own history;

112
00:07:36,219 --> 00:07:39,047
it's always been written by other people.

113
00:07:39,048 --> 00:07:43,294
Now, because we don't have
a link to our own history

114
00:07:43,295 --> 00:07:46,291
or because we didn't have
a grasp on our own history,

115
00:07:46,292 --> 00:07:51,604
we're using Afrofuturism
to stake a place in the future

116
00:07:51,605 --> 00:07:54,921
so we can strongly identify
ourselves in the future.

117
00:07:56,534 --> 00:07:58,978
Mark Dery argues
that the younger generation

118
00:07:58,979 --> 00:08:02,036
have used technology
as a way to insert themselves

119
00:08:02,037 --> 00:08:04,414
into both a real and imagined landscape

120
00:08:04,415 --> 00:08:07,668
to physically assert
their presence in the present

121
00:08:07,669 --> 00:08:11,787
and to make it clear they intend
to stake their claim in the future.

122
00:08:13,427 --> 00:08:16,451
So because we can't reclaim our history,

123
00:08:16,452 --> 00:08:19,769
we are now trying
to project our own future.

124
00:08:20,653 --> 00:08:25,515
Of course, in projecting our own future,
we have to ask where are we doing it?

125
00:08:25,516 --> 00:08:27,257
In what spaces are we doing that?

126
00:08:27,258 --> 00:08:28,921
In Kenya, we're doing it in music,

127
00:08:30,011 --> 00:08:33,451
and we have some
of my favorite musicians here as well,

128
00:08:34,328 --> 00:08:39,250
but just a band have, to me,
demonstrated Afrofuturism

129
00:08:39,251 --> 00:08:41,342
in their own music,

130
00:08:41,344 --> 00:08:43,929
especially in one
of their latest songs Huff+Puff.

131
00:08:43,931 --> 00:08:46,202
They say, "Give me five,
it's good to be alive.

132
00:08:46,203 --> 00:08:48,103
The sky seems so far away.

133
00:08:48,104 --> 00:08:50,323
Hope you know we've been
to the moon and back.

134
00:08:50,324 --> 00:08:52,828
Be sure that nothing's
going to hold us back."

135
00:08:53,807 --> 00:08:57,691
So we know that we are larger than life.

136
00:08:57,692 --> 00:08:59,860
We know that we are larger than Earth,

137
00:08:59,861 --> 00:09:02,590
we know we are larger than the cosmos,

138
00:09:02,591 --> 00:09:05,566
and that is reflected
in our work and in our music.

139
00:09:06,106 --> 00:09:08,750
Around the continent, obviously,

140
00:09:08,751 --> 00:09:11,001
there's people like Nnedi Okorafor

141
00:09:12,268 --> 00:09:14,370
who wrote a book called "Who Fears Death".

142
00:09:14,375 --> 00:09:18,293
And this is a matte painting
done by Ivonne Wende, a Kenyan,

143
00:09:18,749 --> 00:09:20,809
about the book "Who Fears Death".

144
00:09:20,810 --> 00:09:24,285
In "Who Fears Death" what Nnedi does

145
00:09:24,286 --> 00:09:29,710
is that she uses the idea
of manipulating technology,

146
00:09:29,711 --> 00:09:31,420
as we know it,

147
00:09:31,421 --> 00:09:34,620
to understand where we are

148
00:09:35,126 --> 00:09:37,958
or to be able to grasp our environment.

149
00:09:37,959 --> 00:09:40,376
And as Africans, we do that all the time.

150
00:09:40,408 --> 00:09:44,370
We use technology that has been used
outside of our space

151
00:09:44,371 --> 00:09:47,749
or that was invented
outside of our own spaces

152
00:09:47,750 --> 00:09:49,971
and use it in our own ways.

153
00:09:50,417 --> 00:09:52,792
What Nnedi Okarafor does
in "Who Fears Death"

154
00:09:52,793 --> 00:09:57,215
is that she creates
these particular machines

155
00:09:57,216 --> 00:09:59,069
called water catcher stations,

156
00:09:59,070 --> 00:10:02,044
and they absorb all [the water from]
the atmosphere around them

157
00:10:02,045 --> 00:10:05,041
so that people can take baths,
can have clean drinking water,

158
00:10:05,042 --> 00:10:06,705
[inaudible] and so forth.

159
00:10:06,706 --> 00:10:09,048
That's the fictional side of it.

160
00:10:10,184 --> 00:10:14,553
But in practice, how are Kenyans
using Afrofuturism?

161
00:10:15,542 --> 00:10:21,383
I have to say I would refer
to AfriGadget, the website

162
00:10:21,384 --> 00:10:27,875
that has a plethora of different people
doing very inventive, and for me,

163
00:10:27,876 --> 00:10:32,710
very futuristic things, including
a young 13-year-old called Richard Turere,

164
00:10:33,475 --> 00:10:40,209
and what he did is that he created
a way to run a flashlight invention,

165
00:10:40,210 --> 00:10:41,934
run off a car battery,

166
00:10:41,935 --> 00:10:45,845
to keep predators away
from his family's property.

167
00:10:47,167 --> 00:10:52,043
That to me is a very Afrofuturist sense
of using technology,

168
00:10:52,056 --> 00:10:57,272
but in a very rustic way,
in a way that makes sense to us.

169
00:10:59,667 --> 00:11:04,834
In my film "Pumzi" I used
the idea of technology,

170
00:11:04,837 --> 00:11:09,167
and this is a picture
of what we call self-powered generator;

171
00:11:09,168 --> 00:11:11,755
and there would be these people
running on treadmills

172
00:11:11,756 --> 00:11:15,637
and they would generate electricity
in order to power where they lived.

173
00:11:16,375 --> 00:11:20,917
I thought I was being very imaginative
until I googled it.

174
00:11:20,940 --> 00:11:22,489
(muted laughter)

175
00:11:22,490 --> 00:11:23,941
And I wasn't so much.

176
00:11:23,942 --> 00:11:26,135
Self-powered generators do exist.

177
00:11:26,136 --> 00:11:29,730
They do, there are ways of using
kinetic energy to power stations.

178
00:11:29,731 --> 00:11:31,911
It's not completely
in practice at the moment,

179
00:11:31,912 --> 00:11:36,448
but it's an idea of the ways
that we can use technology

180
00:11:36,449 --> 00:11:39,061
in a very Afrofuturist setting

181
00:11:39,062 --> 00:11:42,089
to be able to run our everyday things.

182
00:11:42,601 --> 00:11:45,241
There's obviously nowhere
we can talk about the future

183
00:11:45,242 --> 00:11:47,049
without talking about technology.

184
00:11:47,050 --> 00:11:50,099
In "Pumzi", I also talk about
the idea of communication,

185
00:11:50,100 --> 00:11:52,122
and I know from my own experience

186
00:11:52,123 --> 00:11:54,838
that I would be sitting
across the table from a friend

187
00:11:54,839 --> 00:11:56,982
and we would tweet each other.

188
00:11:57,946 --> 00:12:01,406
Now we have learned to communicate
in 140 characters or less.

189
00:12:02,825 --> 00:12:07,625
Even when I'm talking about the things
that are happening in my life,

190
00:12:07,626 --> 00:12:12,460
I'll use a hashtag, as if it were
part of the sentence.

191
00:12:15,188 --> 00:12:19,276
In "Pumzi", what I did
is I created this idea --

192
00:12:19,277 --> 00:12:21,073
and we'll see it in a second --

193
00:12:21,074 --> 00:12:26,259
about how we use different layers
of technology in order to communicate

194
00:12:26,260 --> 00:12:28,798
and the thought process of that

195
00:12:28,799 --> 00:12:32,153
is that we're looking
for more efficient ways of communicating

196
00:12:32,154 --> 00:12:34,853
rather than finding emotive ways
of communicating.

197
00:12:35,624 --> 00:12:39,008
For me, what is most important
and what I've found from making "Pumzi"

198
00:12:39,698 --> 00:12:45,354
is that the idea of Afrofuturism
worked the best for me

199
00:12:45,355 --> 00:12:51,075
because I'm able to extrapolate on ideas,
and thoughts, and feelings I have

200
00:12:51,076 --> 00:12:52,913
about the way the world is running

201
00:12:52,914 --> 00:12:55,908
without offending people
or without being too heavy-handed.

202
00:12:55,909 --> 00:13:00,126
For me, what "Pumzi" was
was a reflection of society,

203
00:13:00,127 --> 00:13:02,766
and it's set 35 years after the Water War,

204
00:13:03,366 --> 00:13:07,186
and where everybody lives inside because
they've been told the outside is dead,

205
00:13:08,696 --> 00:13:13,754
until one character, Asher,
wakes up from a dream --

206
00:13:13,755 --> 00:13:15,035
which is not allowed,

207
00:13:15,042 --> 00:13:18,292
because everybody is supposed
to be taking dream suppressants --

208
00:13:18,293 --> 00:13:23,570
and she finds a seed that she then plants,
and it starts to grow.

209
00:13:24,492 --> 00:13:26,851
But in a world where the outside is dead,

210
00:13:26,852 --> 00:13:29,751
and her being the curator
of a virtual natural museum --

211
00:13:29,752 --> 00:13:32,339
and that's the only place
you have access to nature --

212
00:13:32,818 --> 00:13:35,958
she had to find, to fight a way
outside of herself

213
00:13:35,959 --> 00:13:38,522
to be able to prove that life exists.

214
00:13:39,227 --> 00:13:40,937
That's "Pumzi".

215
00:13:40,938 --> 00:13:44,724
But my metaphor for "Pumzi"
is about life and sacrifice,

216
00:13:44,725 --> 00:13:48,272
and the fact that we ourselves
have to mother Mother Nature.

217
00:13:48,751 --> 00:13:53,295
We have to make sacrifices
in order to live in this one,

218
00:13:53,296 --> 00:13:58,803
and we have to know that our own behaviors
will affect generations to come.

219
00:14:00,341 --> 00:14:05,161
As a storyteller
in the tradition of the Kikuyu,

220
00:14:05,162 --> 00:14:08,615
my job is to be a seer,
not just a historian

221
00:14:08,616 --> 00:14:12,385
and to be able like Moreau
who predicted the coming of white people

222
00:14:12,386 --> 00:14:17,051
as if they were colorful butterflies
or the train in the sense of the way

223
00:14:17,052 --> 00:14:19,909
that he saw a snake with smoke
coming out of its head

224
00:14:19,910 --> 00:14:21,485
to be able to say:

225
00:14:21,486 --> 00:14:25,486
there is more to life than we see
and listen to the storytellers.

226
00:14:25,487 --> 00:14:28,182
They also have a voice,
and their voice is important.

227
00:14:29,575 --> 00:14:32,111
So, I leave you with a clip from "Pumzi",

228
00:14:32,112 --> 00:14:37,551
and this is just an indication
of the possibilities of the human mind,

229
00:14:37,552 --> 00:14:40,706
the possibilities of Afrofuturism,

230
00:14:40,707 --> 00:14:44,605
and how Afrofuturism
relates to us as Africans.

231
00:14:44,606 --> 00:14:47,496
(applause) (cheers)