Black Quantum Futurism: Theory and Practice — Time Studies Group #02
Our Time Studies Group is happening, my personal invitation for a year on time studies. In our first gathering, right after a new moon, we reflected about What Is The Contemporary based on the text by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. It brings for our lexicon the concept of anachronism: a profound dissonance of the contemporariness. “The contemporary is they who firmly hold their gaze on their own time so as to perceive not its light, but rather its darkness”. To do not identify completely with the time we live in. Do you?
Weaving a seam between texts based on conversation and synchronies, I choose as the second text “Black Quantum Futurism: Theory and Practice - Part One” by Rasheedah Phillips. We will navigate together with the multi artist and author in ideas coming from quantum physics, futures studies, and Black/African cultural traditions of consciousness, time, and space. I promise that’s one of the most contemporary perspectives of time you ever read.
You can buy Rasheedah Phillips’ book on Kindle or get in the waiting list for a printed version on her own website. Once more, we are going to have a ‘reading together’ session to the ones that are finding hard to follow long texts. Then, right after the new moon our gathering comes to discuss and reflect on the ideas. You can sign up for this event here, for free or paying what you can (donation based).
To deep dive:
Fourth Episode of Society of the Many, season one of Visible Storytelling. video (10 minutes)
Black Quantum Futurism Collective is a multidisciplinary collaboration between Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips exploring the intersections of Afrofuturism, feminism, DIY-aesthetics, and activism in marginalized communities through an alternative temporal lens.
Based in Philadelphia, Black Quantum Futurism have been focusing in particular on the impact of redevelopment, gentrification, and displacement in the Sharswood neighbourhood. In this video, Rasheedah Phillips talks about the strategies BQF adopt through workshops, pop-up events and an online archive of stories to help reverse gentrification and create conditions necessary for temporal autonomy and spatial agency.
Time: Rasheedah Phillips & Dorota Grabowska Art at Cern.
podcast (30 minutes)
In 2020, artist and writer Rasheedah Philips received the Collide A:ward alongside Camae Ayewa as the collective Black Quantum Futurism. They completed a residency at CERN and Barcelona to further their multidisciplinary practice that weaves quantum physics with Afro Diasporic concepts of time.
Joining in conversation is theoretical physicist Dorota Grabowska, who works in quantum field theory and met Rasheedah Phillips during their time in the lab.
Together, they discuss how quantum physics can transform our everyday understanding of time, Black Quantum Futurism’s residency project and exhibition CPT Symmetry and Violations, and how scientific work might impact physicists’ experience of time.
The conversation is hosted by Mónica Bello, Curator and Head of Arts at CERN.
Arts at CERN is made by Reduced Listening. The producer for this episode is Georgia Moodie, and the executive producer is Jack Howson.
Come and lets talk about time.
Temporality Lab:
experimenting with other temporalities
– Writen for the new moon of February 20, 2023 / NS1.35 Galactic 14.
