Lovecraft Country Decoded: Ciphers & Portals
Through his mother’s line, Atticus Freeman or Tic, has inherited a secret power that others want very much to possess. Tic and his companions uncover many clues along the way in the form of maps, puzzles and ornaments. He encounters ciphers or algorithms that are used for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps to unlock magical incantations.
Episode 5 (“Strange Case”) reminded me of “Signs and Symbols: African Images in African-American Quilts” by Maude Southwell Wahlman that looks at ideograms from the African continent that are found in African American quilts. An ideogram or glyph is a written character that symbolizes the idea of something without indicating the sounds used to say it. Some examples of ancient ideograms are Nsibidi, Vai and Uli (Nigeria), Adinkra (Ghana), and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Scripts like Nsibidi and Uli are protected.
The use of quilts as textual sites is evident in African American quilting, where complex visual forms were wedded to both Nsibidi symbology and to natural or cultural remnants. African American quilts are historical, cultural, and religious maps, directing the way from the past to the present. These quilts enact alternate views of the world based on “polyrhythmic, ‘nonsymmetrical,’ nonlinear structures.” These quilt texts provide a rhetorical space for creating African American culture, using a shared visual code. Cheryl B. Torsney & Judy Elsley. Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern (pgs. 118–119).
In addition to quilts, symbols such as cosmograms are (in two-dimensions) a guide or map for understanding the universe. In three dimensions, these designs are portals that transport practitioners to another time and space. Tic’s signet ring unlocks a secret portal that connects him to his ancestor, Dora Freeman, who subsequently leads him out of a burning house to safety and freedom. With Dora is the “Book of Names” that contains the cipher.
In the past I’ve explored ciphers, cosmograms, or portals in Afrofuturism that I define as “the artistic practice of navigating the past, present, and future simultaneously.” In the ritual scene (episode 2), we see this demonstrated as Tic becomes a navigator in time and space. He is in his present but his also sees his ancestor (past) and the future beyond her. Thus, “Lovecraft Country” enters the realm of Afrofuturism and, more broadly, the techno-vernacular mode of re-appropriation (and liberation).
Note: This domain also engages computational concepts, linking cultural heritage artifacts such as ideograms and cosmograms to coding (programming) and algorithmic design.