9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(frenetic music)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(applause)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
My talk,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about Afrofuturism and the African.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Afrofuturism is considered[br]what speculative fiction,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
myths, legends, science fiction,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the stories of that genre[br]are to African Americans,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Africa, Africa of the Diaspora,[br]and black people in general.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What (inaudible) refers it to is[br]what blackness looks like in the future,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
real or imagined.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, the history of Afrofuturism[br]comes from America

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and was first coined[br]by a man called Mark Dery

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and when he started talking[br]about Afrofuturism

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
he talks about the idea of literature,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so the books[br]that Octavia Butler would write

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and things like that,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but then it also moved[br]into a new region of music

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so we would have people[br]like Sun Ra and George Clinton

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but for me, especially Sun Ra because[br]he has a special place in my heart,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
He believed that he came[br]from the planet Saturn

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and came to earth to spread[br]the message of love and peace.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Like in his movie, "Space is the Place"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
he introduces the idea of "alien"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to black people in America.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But that was very specifically[br]about African Americans

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I wanted to find a place[br]for Afrofuturism <i>in</i> Africa.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The first place that that led me[br]to is Mount Kenya, obviously,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where the god of Mount Kenya lives[br]according to the Kikuyu tradition

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so Mwene Nyaga is seated[br]on top of this mountain

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and he introduced ourAdam and Eve,[br]Gikuyu and Mumbi,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and from that were descendants[br]of the nine children.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But even before the idea[br]of the myth of Gikuyu and Mumbi,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the idea of Afrofuturism[br]or legends and myths

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and stories that were told[br]to me by my mother

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and she is a great storyteller[br]as well as a pediatrician

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so I'd have to say that her stories[br]were truly science fiction, truly.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I remember her telling me stories[br]about the way if I ate the pumpkin,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my hair would grow.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Or if --which is strange--[br]if I attach leeches to my nipples,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my breasts would grow.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And also... I did it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And also, she would talk about the way

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that in the Kikuru tradition,[br]if you circle the Mugumo tree seven times,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you would change sex.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Growing up, obviously,[br]past my mother's stories,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I began to read stories of my own[br]and they were inevitably filled

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with the ogre and the young girl[br]who wandered off into the forest

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and what would happen[br]if she wandered off into the forest

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and how she would meet this terrible ogre

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because she departed[br]from the ways of the society.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's also when I met Ben Okri[br]and the idea of the spirit child

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the idea of using spiritualism[br]or mythical realism within storytelling.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That, for me, is also[br]a link to Afrofuturism.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But what really inspired me about Ben Okri

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was his ability to merge seamlessly[br]the idea of the spirit world and fiction.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And the idea that we live in a continent

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that is so closely linked[br]to the spirit world

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that we use it in a very[br]everyday sort of way

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that is true[br]when we come to witch doctors,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sangoma, or people who deal[br]with the spiritual realms.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's also true of genies of the coast

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I don't even know how many of you[br]have gone to Mombasa or Zanzibar,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but I know from personal experience

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
there was a cat that followed me[br]for five kilometers,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or every time I turned around it was there

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I could have sworn it was a genie.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm positive about it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In fact, I have friends[br]who attest to the fact as well.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So Afrofuturism has always been[br]part of our culture, part of us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But more interestingly, it has been part[br]of the history of West Africa.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, West Africa is believed,[br]especially in money,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
there is a nation[br]of people called the Dogan

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the Dogan people believe[br]that they were told

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about a planet called Ceres B

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
before it was discovered[br]by Western scientists.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They were told of this planet[br]by a race of amphibian-like aliens

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who came in from the ocean

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and told them, not only about a planet,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but also about the rotation of the planet

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and how it worked in space.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Some of the cave drawings, like these,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
showed the amphibian creatures[br]at the bottom of the people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or the people who came[br]to speak to them about this planet.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Then, later on, it was discovered,[br]so they had the knowledge in 1930

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but it wasn't until the '70s[br]that the actual planet was seen.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
If that isn't curious science fiction,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
history, I don't know what is.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But also from South Africa[br]we have people like Credo Mutwa

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who believes there is[br]a reptilian race of people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
whose bloodline extends[br]into modern day royalty

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and modern day business people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and is what, I guess, theorists[br]would call the <i>Illuminati</i>.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So we've established that fact--[br]fact <i>or</i> fiction.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Myths have always existed[br]very, very closely to us,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but there's been a growing need[br]for the idea of Afrofuturism

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I'd have to ask why?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And when talking about it,[br]I talked about it to a friend of mine,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and he said, "Africans[br]are inherently futuristic,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
given the sheer capriciousness[br]of our present situation."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That was my friend Michael [inaudible][br]who reckons he's very clever.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Then there was a writer called[br]David William Cohen who says,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"The struggle of man against power

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is the struggle of man[br]against forgetting."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This makes a lot of sense[br]because it's been suggested

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that Afrofuturism, as a genre, is growing

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because as Africans[br]or as descendants of Africa,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we've never had a space or a voice[br]within our own history.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We've never had a chance[br]to talk about our own history.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's always been written by other people.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, because we don't have[br]a link to our own history

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or because we didn't have[br]a grasp on our own history,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we're using Afrofuturism[br]to stake a place in the future

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so we can strongly identify[br]ourselves in the future.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Mark Dery argues[br]that the younger generation

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
have used technology[br]as a way to insert themselves

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into both a real[br]and imagined landscape

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to physically assert[br]their presence in the present

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and to make it clear they intend[br]to stake their claim in the future.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So because we can't reclaim our history,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we are now trying[br]to project our own future.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Of course, in projecting our own future,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we have to ask where are we doing it?[br]In what spaces are we doing that?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In Kenya, we're doing that in music

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we have some of my favorite[br]musicians here as well

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but just a band have, to me,[br]demonstrated Afrofuturism

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in their own music,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
especially in one[br]of their latest songs [inaudible].

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They say, "Give me five,[br]it's good to be alive.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The sky seems so far away.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Hope you know we've been[br]to the moon and back.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Be sure that nothing's[br]going to hold us back."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So we know that we are larger than life.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We know that we are larger than earth.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We know we are larger than the cosmos

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that is reflected[br]in our work, and in our music.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Around the continent, obviously,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
there's people like Nnedi Okorafor

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who wrote a book called "Who Fears Death"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and this is a matte painting[br]done by Ivonne Wende, a Kenyan

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about the book "Who Fears Death"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and in "Who Fears Death" what Nnedi does

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that she uses the idea[br]of manipulating technology as we know it

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to understand where we are

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or to be able to grasp our environment

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and as Afrikans, we do that all the time.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We use technology that has been used[br]outside of our space

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or that was invented[br]outside of our own spaces

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and use it in our own ways.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What Nnedi Okarafor does[br]in "Who Fears Death"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that she creates[br]these particular machines

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
called water catcher stations,[br]and they absorb

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
all the atmosphere[br]from around them

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that people can take baths,[br]can have clean drinking water,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
[inaudible] and so forth.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's the fictional side of it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In practice, how are Kenyans[br]using Afrofuturism?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I have to say I would refer[br]to Afrigadgets, the website

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that has a plethora of different people[br]doing very inventive and for me,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
very futuristic things including[br]a young 13 year old called Richard Turere

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and what he did is that he created[br]a way to run a flashlight invention,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
run off a car battery, to keep predators[br]away from his family's property.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That to me is a very Afrofuturist sense[br]of using technology,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but in a very rustic way,[br]in a way that makes sense to us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In my film "Pumzi" I used[br]the idea of technology

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and this is a picture[br]of what we call self-power generator

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and there would be these people[br]running on treadmills

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and they would generate electricity[br]in order to have power where they lived.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I thought I was being[br]creative, imaginative,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
until I googled it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(muted laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I wasn't so much.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Self power generators do exist.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They do, they're our ways of using[br]kinetic energy to power stations.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's not completely[br]in practice at the moment

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but it's an idea of the ways[br]that we can use technology

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in a very Afrofuturist setting

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to be able to run our everyday things.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
There's obviously nowhere[br]we can talk about the future

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
without talking about technology.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In "Pumzi", I also talk about[br]the idea of communication,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I know from my own experience

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that I would be sitting[br]across the table from a friend

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we would tweet each other.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now we have learned to communicate[br]in 140 characters or less.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Even when I'm talking about the things[br]that are happening in my life,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'll use hashtag, as if it were[br]part of the sentence.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In "Pumzi", what I did[br]is I created this idea,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we'll see it in a second,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about how we use different layers[br]of technology in order to communicate

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the thought process of that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that we're looking[br]for more efficient ways of communicating

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
rather than finding emotive ways[br]of communicating.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
For me, what is most important[br]and what I've found from making "Pumzi"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that the idea of Afrofuturism[br]worked the best for me

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because I'm able to extrapolate[br]on ideas and thoughts

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and feelings I have about[br]the way the world is running

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
without offending people[br]or without being too heavy handed

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and for me, what "Pumzi" was[br]was a reflection of society

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and it's set 75 years after the Water War

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and where everybody lives inside because[br]they've been told the outside is dead.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
until one character, Asher,[br]wakes up from a dream

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which is not allowed, because everybody[br]is supposed to be taking dream suppresants

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and she finds a seed that she then plants,[br]and it starts to grow.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But in a world where the outside is dead,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and her being the curator[br]of a virtual natural museum,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that's the only place[br]you have access to nature,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
she had to find a way outside of herself

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to be able to prove that life exists.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That's "Pumzi".

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But my metaphor for "Pumzi"[br]is about life and sacrifice

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the fact that we ourselves[br]have to mother Mother Nature.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We have to make sacrifices[br]in order to live in this one

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we have to know that our own behaviors[br]will affect generations to come.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
As a storyteller in the tradition[br]of the [inaudible]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my job is to be a seer,[br]not just a historian

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and to be able like [Mogo][br]who predicted the coming of white people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as if they were colorful butterflies[br]or the train in the sense of the way

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that he saw a snake with smoke[br]coming out of its head

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to be able to say,[br]there is more to life than we see

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and listen to the storytellers.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They also have a voice,[br]and their voice is important.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, I leave you with a clip from "Pumzi"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and this is just an indication[br]of the possibilities of the human mind,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the possibilities of Afrofuturism

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and how Afrofuturism[br]relates to us as Africans.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(applause)