1
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(frenetic music)

2
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(applause)

3
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
My talk,

4
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
about Afrofuturism and the African.

5
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Afrofuturism is considered
what speculative fiction,

6
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
myths, legends, science fiction,

7
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and the stories of that genre
are to African Americans,

8
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Africa, Africa of the Diaspora,
and black people in general.

9
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
What (inaudible) refers it to is
what blackness looks like in the future,

10
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
real or imagined.

11
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Now, the history of Afrofuturism
comes from America

12
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and was first coined
by a man called Mark Dery

13
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and when he started talking
about Afrofuturism

14
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
he talks about the idea of literature,

15
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
so the books
that Octavia Butler would write

16
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and things like that,

17
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but then it also moved
into a new region of music

18
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
so we would have people
like Sun Ra and George Clinton

19
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but for me, especially Sun Ra because
he has a special place in my heart,

20
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
He believed that he came
from the planet Saturn

21
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and came to earth to spread
the message of love and peace.

22
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Like in his movie, "Space is the Place"

23
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
he introduces the idea of "alien"

24
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to black people in America.

25
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But that was very specifically
about African Americans

26
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I wanted to find a place
for Afrofuturism <i>in</i> Africa.

27
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The first place that that led me
to is Mount Kenya, obviously,

28
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
where the god of Mount Kenya lives
according to the Kikuyu tradition

29
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
so Mwene Nyaga is seated
on top of this mountain

30
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and he introduced ourAdam and Eve,
Gikuyu and Mumbi,

31
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and from that were descendants
of the nine children.

32
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But even before the idea
of the myth of Gikuyu and Mumbi,

33
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the idea of Afrofuturism
or legends and myths

34
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and stories that were told
to me by my mother

35
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and she is a great storyteller
as well as a pediatrician

36
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
so I'd have to say that her stories
were truly science fiction, truly.

37
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(laughter)

38
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I remember her telling me stories
about the way if I ate the pumpkin,

39
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
my hair would grow.

40
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Or if --which is strange--
if I attach leeches to my nipples,

41
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
my breasts would grow.

42
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And also... I did it.

43
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(laughter)

44
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And also, she would talk about the way

45
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that in the Kikuru tradition,
if you circle the Mugumo tree seven times,

46
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
you would change sex.

47
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Growing up, obviously,
past my mother's stories,

48
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I began to read stories of my own
and they were inevitably filled

49
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
with the ogre and the young girl
who wandered off into the forest

50
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and what would happen
if she wandered off into the forest

51
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and how she would meet this terrible ogre

52
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
because she departed
from the ways of the society.

53
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That's also when I met Ben Okri
and the idea of the spirit child

54
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and the idea of using spiritualism
or mythical realism within storytelling.

55
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That, for me, is also
a link to Afrofuturism.

56
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But what really inspired me about Ben Okri

57
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was his ability to merge seamlessly
the idea of the spirit world and fiction.

58
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And the idea that we live in a continent

59
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that is so closely linked
to the spirit world

60
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that we use it in a very
everyday sort of way

61
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and that is true
when we come to witch doctors,

62
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
sangoma, or people who deal
with the spiritual realms.

63
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It's also true of genies of the coast

64
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I don't even know how many of you
have gone to Mombasa or Zanzibar,

65
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but I know from personal experience

66
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
there was a cat that followed me
for five kilometers,

67
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
or every time I turned around it was there

68
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I could have sworn it was a genie.

69
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I'm positive about it.

70
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In fact, I have friends
who attest to the fact as well.

71
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So Afrofuturism has always been
part of our culture, part of us.

72
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But more interestingly, it has been part
of the history of West Africa.

73
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Now, West Africa is believed,
especially in money,

74
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
there is a nation
of people called the Dogan

75
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and the Dogan people believe
that they were told

76
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
about a planet called Ceres B

77
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
before it was discovered
by Western scientists.

78
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
They were told of this planet
by a race of amphibian-like aliens

79
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
who came in from the ocean

80
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and told them, not only about a planet,

81
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but also about the rotation of the planet

82
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and how it worked in space.

83
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Some of the cave drawings, like these,

84
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
showed the amphibian creatures
at the bottom of the people,

85
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
or the people who came
to speak to them about this planet.

86
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Then, later on, it was discovered,
so they had the knowledge in 1930

87
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but it wasn't until the '70s
that the actual planet was seen.

88
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
If that isn't curious science fiction,

89
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
history, I don't know what is.

90
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But also from South Africa
we have people like Credo Mutwa

91
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
who believes there is
a reptilian race of people

92
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
whose bloodline extends
into modern day royalty

93
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and modern day business people

94
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and is what, I guess, theorists
would call the <i>Illuminati</i>.

95
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So we've established that fact--
fact <i>or</i> fiction.

96
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Myths have always existed
very, very closely to us,

97
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but there's been a growing need
for the idea of Afrofuturism

98
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I'd have to ask why?

99
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And when talking about it,
I talked about it to a friend of mine,

100
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and he said, "Africans
are inherently futuristic,

101
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
given the sheer capriciousness
of our present situation."

102
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That was my friend Michael [inaudible]
who reckons he's very clever.

103
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Then there was a writer called
David William Cohen who says,

104
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
"The struggle of man against power

105
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is the struggle of man
against forgetting."

106
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
This makes a lot of sense
because it's been suggested

107
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that Afrofuturism, as a genre, is growing

108
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
because as Africans
or as descendants of Africa,

109
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
we've never had a space or a voice
within our own history.

110
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We've never had a chance
to talk about our own history.

111
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It's always been written by other people.

112
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Now, because we don't have
a link to our own history

113
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
or because we didn't have
a grasp on our own history,

114
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
we're using Afrofuturism
to stake a place in the future

115
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
so we can strongly identify
ourselves in the future.

116
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Mark Dery argues
that the younger generation

117
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
have used technology
as a way to insert themselves

118
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
into both a real
and imagined landscape

119
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to physically assert
their presence in the present

120
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and to make it clear they intend
to stake their claim in the future.

121
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So because we can't reclaim our history,

122
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
we are now trying
to project our own future.

123
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Of course, in projecting our own future,

124
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
we have to ask where are we doing it?
In what spaces are we doing that?

125
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In Kenya, we're doing that in music

126
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and we have some of my favorite
musicians here as well

127
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but just a band have, to me,
demonstrated Afrofuturism

128
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
in their own music,

129
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
especially in one
of their latest songs [inaudible].

130
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
They say, "Give me five,
it's good to be alive.

131
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The sky seems so far away.

132
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Hope you know we've been
to the moon and back.

133
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Be sure that nothing's
going to hold us back."

134
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So we know that we are larger than life.

135
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We know that we are larger than earth.

136
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We know we are larger than the cosmos

137
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and that is reflected
in our work, and in our music.

138
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Around the continent, obviously,

139
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
there's people like Nnedi Okorafor

140
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
who wrote a book called "Who Fears Death"

141
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and this is a matte painting
done by Ivonne Wende, a Kenyan

142
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
about the book "Who Fears Death"

143
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and in "Who Fears Death" what Nnedi does

144
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is that she uses the idea
of manipulating technology as we know it

145
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to understand where we are

146
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
or to be able to grasp our environment

147
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and as Afrikans, we do that all the time.

148
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We use technology that has been used
outside of our space

149
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
or that was invented
outside of our own spaces

150
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and use it in our own ways.

151
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
What Nnedi Okarafor does
in "Who Fears Death"

152
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is that she creates
these particular machines

153
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
called water catcher stations,
and they absorb

154
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
all the atmosphere
from around them

155
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that people can take baths,
can have clean drinking water,

156
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
[inaudible] and so forth.

157
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That's the fictional side of it.

158
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In practice, how are Kenyans
using Afrofuturism?

159
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I have to say I would refer
to Afrigadgets, the website

160
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that has a plethora of different people
doing very inventive and for me,

161
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
very futuristic things including
a young 13 year old called Richard Turere

162
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and what he did is that he created
a way to run a flashlight invention,

163
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
run off a car battery, to keep predators
away from his family's property.

164
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That to me is a very Afrofuturist sense
of using technology,

165
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but in a very rustic way,
in a way that makes sense to us.

166
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In my film "Pumzi" I used
the idea of technology

167
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and this is a picture
of what we call self-power generator

168
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and there would be these people
running on treadmills

169
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and they would generate electricity
in order to have power where they lived.

170
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I thought I was being
creative, imaginative,

171
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
until I googled it.

172
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(muted laughter)

173
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And I wasn't so much.

174
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Self power generators do exist.

175
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
They do, they're our ways of using
kinetic energy to power stations.

176
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It's not completely
in practice at the moment

177
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but it's an idea of the ways
that we can use technology

178
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
in a very Afrofuturist setting

179
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to be able to run our everyday things.

180
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
There's obviously nowhere
we can talk about the future

181
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
without talking about technology.

182
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In "Pumzi", I also talk about
the idea of communication,

183
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I know from my own experience

184
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that I would be sitting
across the table from a friend

185
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and we would tweet each other.

186
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Now we have learned to communicate
in 140 characters or less.

187
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Even when I'm talking about the things
that are happening in my life,

188
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I'll use hashtag, as if it were
part of the sentence.

189
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In "Pumzi", what I did
is I created this idea,

190
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and we'll see it in a second,

191
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
about how we use different layers
of technology in order to communicate

192
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and the thought process of that

193
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is that we're looking
for more efficient ways of communicating

194
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
rather than finding emotive ways
of communicating.

195
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
For me, what is most important
and what I've found from making "Pumzi"

196
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is that the idea of Afrofuturism
worked the best for me

197
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
because I'm able to extrapolate
on ideas and thoughts

198
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and feelings I have about
the way the world is running

199
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
without offending people
or without being too heavy handed

200
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and for me, what "Pumzi" was
was a reflection of society

201
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and it's set 75 years after the Water War

202
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and where everybody lives inside because
they've been told the outside is dead.

203
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
until one character, Asher,
wakes up from a dream

204
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
which is not allowed, because everybody
is supposed to be taking dream suppresants

205
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and she finds a seed that she then plants,
and it starts to grow.

206
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But in a world where the outside is dead,

207
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and her being the curator
of a virtual natural museum,

208
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and that's the only place
you have access to nature,

209
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
she had to find a way outside of herself

210
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to be able to prove that life exists.

211
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That's "Pumzi".

212
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But my metaphor for "Pumzi"
is about life and sacrifice

213
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and the fact that we ourselves
have to mother Mother Nature.

214
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We have to make sacrifices
in order to live in this one

215
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and we have to know that our own behaviors
will affect generations to come.

216
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
As a storyteller in the tradition
of the [inaudible]

217
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
my job is to be a seer,
not just a historian

218
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and to be able like [Mogo]
who predicted the coming of white people

219
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
as if they were colorful butterflies
or the train in the sense of the way

220
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that he saw a snake with smoke
coming out of its head

221
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to be able to say,
there is more to life than we see

222
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and listen to the storytellers.

223
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
They also have a voice,
and their voice is important.

224
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So, I leave you with a clip from "Pumzi"

225
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and this is just an indication
of the possibilities of the human mind,

226
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the possibilities of Afrofuturism

227
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and how Afrofuturism
relates to us as Africans.

228
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
(applause)