[-empyre-] Welcome to the -empyre- April 2016 Discussion: Liquid Blackness: Formal Approaches to Blackness and/as Aesthetics

[Linscott, Charles]

Dear Jenny,

 Regarding the representational and metaphorical valences of Blackness and race more generally:


 Yes, these are absolutely problematic and far too facile. Nevertheless, blackness and race are still largely *understood* representationally, which is why the work of liquid blackness (as a group), along with the efforts of its progenitors and influences, is so vital. Destabilizing the representational paradigm of race is a difficult but essential labor. For me, sound helps to perform this labor because it is less obviously beholden to representation than images. Of course, strictly opposing sound and image is problematic in itself, but I do feel that thinking about Blackness and sound is fecund and provocative. What kind of work does Blackness do in sound, music, and voice? What (or where) is the “Blackness” in a “Black” voice or “Black” music? What happens to “Blackness” without the representational ease provided by an allegedly legible “Black” body?  


Thanks to everyone—but particularly Derek, Alessandra, Jenny, and Murat (superb questions!)—for the opportunity to be a part of this extraordinary conversation. I look forward to the coming weeks.

Cheers,

Chip    





> On Apr 8, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
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> Yes, Jenny. Political correctness within this context is a big problem.
> 
> Murat
> 
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 12:12 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jenny, interestingly, "the negative of a photograph" meaning of the word "arab" in Turkish derives from its slang meaning. There were few black people in Istanbul in the lates fifties and sixties. The ones there had come from north Africa/Arabia from the time the territories were part of the Ottoman Empire. The "official" dictionary meaning of the word ("photographic negative") was a derivation from an earlier usage of the word (during the time of empire) that had survived as street/kid slang.
> 
> Ciao,
> Murat
> 
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Jenny Gunn <jgunn7 at mygsu.onmicrosoft.com> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Alessandra mentions the incredible amount of work it takes to deny race. But perhaps it is also important to mention that this work is not always conscious and when it is, it can even be with the best of intentions. What has been very eye opening for me in becoming involved with liquid blackness is the ways in which political correctness figures into the denial of race. The avoidance of the issues of race with the desire not to offend or not to misstep participates in the maintenance of the very fish bowl effect that Morrison describes. If Murat's translation had been more politically correct, it would have prevented an encounter with the imbrications of race in the etymology of Arab. But these encounters should be produced, and this history does not disappear simply through avoidance.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
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