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The conference opens with a keynote lecture from @DevarenneNicole: 'Primitives, Liars and Savages: British New Wave Science Fiction and the end of Empire in Africa.'
Devarenne reads John Christopher's 'The World in Winter' and JG Ballard's 'The Crystal World': novels both set in dystopian 'African' states.
Typically, when 'Africa' is invoked in science fiction by white writers in particular, it is always to comment on something *else*; the continent serves as a backdrop for a kind of colonial narcissistic imagination. #CRSF2019
Devarenne's scholarship reveals that a speech in 'The World in Winter' refers to Viscount Malvern's address during a debate in the House of Lords, March 1959. The paranoia of colonial administration led to sweeping and gross characterizations of 'African' people. #CRSF2019
Devarenne compares JG Ballard's and Joseph Conrad's 'primordial' landscapes. Ballard is widely hailed for inaugurating a new form of sf that combines eco-criticism with psycho-geography. #CRSF2019
Such 'African' settings often served as metaphysical battlefields devoid of all specificity, and present sites of internal struggle for the European wanderer #CRSF2019
Fruzsina Pittner now presents her paper on African Futurism and representations of Africa in digital media. #CRSF2019
Pittner's research is driven by the question "What happens when African and Afrodiasporic authors take charge of their own narrative?" Of course, no single story can encapsulate this. There is no single, tidy answer; there is no one 'true' representation. #CRSF2019
Our post-lunch panel is on SF Visualities. The first presenter is Rachel Hill with a talk titled '"Saturn, Trembling in the Crystal Lens of the Telescope:" Science Fictional Visualities of Outer Space' #CRSF2019
Hill reads images from the Hubble telescope as drawing upon the visual tropes of romanticism and the sublime. The artifice of Hubble images has been naturalized; they purportedly present what space "actually" looks like. #CRSF2019
The aesthetic of the hypersaturated yet supposedly naturalistic Hubble images is referenced in scenes from #StarTrekDiscovery #CRSF2019
Kodwo Eshun identifies the concept of "control and prediction" that reorients public imaginaries to particular visions of futurity. This is particularly heightened in the visualization of technology in science fictional narratives.
How do we counter reductive, conditioning and predictive deployments of SF visuals? #CRSF2019
Next up: Dani Wiliamson, "XPlaceSpace and Seedwire." Her research and work as a video artist deals with probable and ideal futures through the lenses of technology, futurism, social connectivity and borders. #CRSF2019
Her work focuses on 2-dimensional filmic mediums that connect space. Such media allow for a communal state of interaction as opposed to the more solitary sensory phenomena enabled by something like VR #CRSF2019
Williamson's latest work-in-progress is the episodic video series 'Seedwire,' referencing Octavia Butler's 'Earthseed' fictional creed. While we exist in a state of emergency it is hard to envision the kind of future we *do* want; the work seeks to be a panacea for that #CRSF2019
The final presenter on the SF Visualities panel is @babb_jaime with her talk 'To Blaze Forever in a Blazing World:' Space, Time and Hyperspace in Comics #CRSF2019
The term 'hyperspace' emerges from n-dimensional mathematics and refers to conjectured spaces with dimensions beyond height, width and depth #CRSF2019
Einstein popularized the idea of *time* as a fourth dimension; in the popular imagination, hyperspace became seen as a 'temporal' concept #CRSF2019
Babb discusses the problems of presenting hyperdimensions in comic panels. In general, there are three ways to represent 4d objects: 1.) unravel them into 3D parts 2.) Present their 3D cross-section 3.) Project them into a third dimension via animation! #CRSF2019
Comics are a fascinating laboratory for explorations of hyperspace (See Alan Moore's 'The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: The Black Dossier'). #CRSF2019
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