The Last Angel of History
Commissioned by Channel 4 and ZDF, The Last Angel of History explores the relationship between Pan-African culture, electronic music, intergalactic travel, and computer technology. The 45 minute film posits science fiction (with tropes such as alien abduction, estrangement, and genetic engineering) as a metaphor for the Pan-African experience of forced displacement, cultural alienation, and otherness.
Featuring interviews with leading Black cultural figures, including musicians DJ Spooky, Goldie, Derrick May and George Clinton; novelist Ishmael Reed; cultural critics Greg Tate and Kodwo Eshun; and writers Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler.
Screening alongside:
Relic 2 (2019), Larry Achiampong, 15 min
The Relic Traveller series imagines a future in which the global West devolves to a point of decline, whilst the African Union ascends into prosperity, harmony, independence and responsibility in shaping the future of the planet. Relic 2 bridges locations of historical, social and political significance to build upon a postcolonial perspective informed by technology, agency, the body, and narratives of migration.
Drexciya (2010), Akosua Adoma Owusu, 12 min
A portrait of an abandoned Olympic-sized swimming pool in Accra, set on the Riviera in Ghana. Once an upscale development, the Riviera has fallen into dilapidation since the 1970s. The film frames the decaying pool and its surroundings with a liquid soundscape inspired by Afro-futurist myths propagated by the underground Detroit-based band Drexciya.
Curated by Ghada Habib and supported by the AHRC funded doctoral training partnership, White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities.