Afrofuturism, Kinesthetics, Kinematics & Biomechanics: Beyond the Speculative
Afrofuturism is a lot of things including science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics or STEAM. The term was coined by writer Mark Dery in the late 1990s, in a book titled Flame Wars. The essay “Black to the Future” features interviews with the late Greg Tate who recently received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize, Samuel R. Delany, and Tricia Rose. The last time I saw Greg was at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, NY. Knowing we were both fans, I brought to Greg’s attention that Storyboard P was, at that moment, moving his body in reaction to my music visualization on view in the Schomburg Center lobby.
I have different biorhythms I use when I dance. — Storyboard P via Greg Tate
Storyboard P’s “mutant” dance is otherworldly, sometimes alien. He is/was the first Afrofuturistic dancer I could link to STEAM via kinesthetics, kinematics and biomechanics. Kinesthetics refers to movement (e.g., falling, walking, turning) and dictates a style, mood, dynamic range, pattern or form, and so on. Kinematics refers to the motion of points, bodies, and systems of bodies without considering the forces that cause them to move. Biomechanics is the study of forces acting on and generated within the body and of the effects of these forces on various things.
Physics teachers can use this imagery as well as demonstrate the movement to explain the idea of equal and opposite forces. They can use Storyboard P’s performance(s) to explore embodied imagining — through imagery and metaphor — that is a key concept in both physics and dance, suggesting a way that dance and the body can contribute to STEAM learning. We can also use AI and machine learning to simulate movement.
Computer vision is AI that enables computers to derive information from images, videos and other inputs. Facial recognition (sensing) is enabled by computer vision, which is known to be biased based on race and gender. In 2021 I worked with dancer Valencia James and designer Vernelle A. Noel to develop the Carnival app to simulate the Caribbean Carnival, as well as interrogate AI. We used pose estimation, a fundamental task in computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) that involves detecting and tracking the position and orientation of human body parts in images or videos. The Carnival app uses kinematics and AI in a way that celebrates Afrofuturism.
In his first and only film role Bolaji Badejo played the alien in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien. Years later, a busker (street musician) named Onyx Ashanti developed an exo-voice sonological interface to distort sounds and create a new type of embodied instrument and musical performance. We can use biomechanics to explore these motion-based performances, including an understanding muscle use, forces acting on the body, issues of motor control, and the interaction between any one body part and the body as a whole. I created Design a Biomechanical Cyborg (Instructable) to show teachers how to explore biomechanics with their middle school students.
Sometimes, having a conversation with my circle or my community can be very agonizing because I feel so underappreciated as someone who loves learning, and applying steps to different areas. — Storyboard P via Greg Tate
Greg Tate’s essay “The Persistence of Vision” from the book Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader would be a great introduction to the speculative nature of Afrofuturism that allows practitioners to freely explore possibilities and impossibilities alike inside and outside of STEAM. However, once those doors are opened, there are opportunities to design, prototype, and build things that counter historical narratives about Black people across the African diaspora. Design/prototyping transports embodied imagining into the real (physical) world. Hopefully, we’ll see more examples of this theoretical/conceptual and reality-making in the future.