Close-Up Gallery: The Afrosurrealist Film Society

Author(s): Terri Francis

Source: Black Camera, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Fall 2013), pp. 209-219
Published by: Indiana University Press
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Close-­Up Gallery: Afrosurrealism
The Afrosurrealist Film Society

C u rate d by T e r r i F ranci s

Mission Statement

The Afrosurrealist Film Society is an imaginary collective of artist-intellectuals

who engage film in its varied forms and transnational histories. Animated
by Amiri Baraka’s chant “Afro-­Surreal Expressionism,” we seek through our
creations an entirely different world, a marvelous world, that lies just be-
neath the surface of this one—its vernaculars, its haunts, and oh, its delights
and curiosities. We draw upon an electric mash-­up of folklore, history, (sub)
consciousness and location in order to engage representations and refrac-
tions of reality through film’s necessary framings and inevitable distortions.
Sensual in all we do. Industrious and tenacious, we retreat whenever pos-
sible for contemplation, conversation and creativity. Black Liberation! And
Beauty. Abstraction. With roots.

Overview: The Afrosurrealist Film Society

This gallery addresses questions the introduction leaves open: Who are the
Afrosurrealists? And what does their work look like? What follows is a se-
lected survey of artists working in experimental film today, supplementing
those already discussed in the Close-­Up. The images illustrate a range of con-
cerns and methods and certainly a diversity of formal choices by artists in-
trigued by the term Afrosurrealism. The images underscore the desired lack
of cohesion among experimental filmmakers generally and black experi-
mental artists would not necessarily wish to depart from this—but solidarity,
community and legacy are criti­cal values that do create bonds; this Close-Up
marks lines of friendship.
There is always that vexing question of categorization and how to define

Terri Francis, “Close-­Up Gallery: Afrosurrealism: The Afrosurrealist Film Society.” Black
Camera, An International Film Journal, Vol. 5 No. 1 (Fall 2013), 209–219.

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210 BLACK CAMERA 5:1

black film which is snagged by the whole rage-­making question of what is

black or why does it have to just be black, it’s so much more? How to square
the meaningfulness of identity and the meaning we take from form—not that
expressions of identity do not represent highly considered formal aesthetic
choices. Are discussions of culture and discussions of aesthetics always dif-
ferent and separate discussions—and can’t identity and culture be discussed
without it being so . . . literal, determinative and frustrating?
What does Afrosurrealism really mean? Why is the “afro” on there? Are
we really supposed to be a separate, new, afro form of surrealism? Does sur-
realism really need this extra prefix? How comfortable are we with biological
definitions of black film? What is creativity? What about creativity?
Recall the opening to Thomas Cripps’s “Definitions” chapter in Black
Film as Genre: “black film may be defined as those motion pictures made for
theater distribution that have a black producer, director, and writer, or black
performers; that speak to black audiences or, incidentally, to white audiences
possessed of preternatural curiosity, attentiveness, or sensibility toward racial
matters; and that emerge from self-­conscious intentions, whether artistic or
po­liti­cal, to illuminate the Afro-­Ameri­can experience.” But, as he conceded,
“Black film taken in its narrowest sense then consists of only a tiny body of
work seen by a coterie of black moviegoers, then consigned to an early death
in dusty storerooms. . . .” Keep it loose or risk—so much is at stake. Afrosur-
realism is a no-­theory that welcomes theorizations.1
Not that it isn’t absurd to be so specific or feel the obligation to be so spe-
cific about the blackness of or the motivations of what black artists are doing
when they could be doing anything for any reason or for no reason; still, Af-
rosurrealism as an imaginary works and it excites. Within film studies and
within histories of the avant-­garde Afrosurrealism offers discursive space in
which to open up conversations about experimental filmmaking among Af­
ri­can Diaspora artists and more themes and questions around the ongoing
deliberation on film as art. Let Afrosurrealism be energizing and organizing
and then let it go.

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T e r r i F r a n c i s / Close-Up Gallery 211

Photographs, Film Stills, Screen Grabs, and Frame

Enlargements

1. Cauleen Smith (Figure 1)

“The Maladjusted are a tribe of creatives who use images in service of time-­
based media. The Maladjusteds love a good action flick as much as the next
person. The writer admires filmmakers who blow shit up, propel objects in
space, animate alien creatures, and imbue electromagnetic fields with pun-
ishing spiritual malice. However: The Maladjusteds do not require narra-
tive to experience the rewards of time-­based media. Narrative is incidental
to image. As far as Maladjusteds are concerned, a filmmaker could tell the
same story over and over and it will ever re-­new if the form, materials, and
environmental stakes of their subjects are manifested with the love, integ-
rity, and openness that only an amateur can muster. Agape!”2

Figure 1. “Diagram for the Association of the Advancement for Creative Cinematic Maladjustment,”
ink on moleskin, 5” x 7”. Cauleen Smith 2011. Courtesy of the artist.

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212 BLACK CAMERA 5:1

2. Christopher Harris (Figure 2)

still/here is “a meditation on the vast landscape of ruins and vacant lots that
constitute the North side of St. Louis, an area populated almost exclusively
by working class and working poor Af­ri­can Ameri­cans.”3 In returning to his
old neighborhood, Harris found beauty in the economically depressed area:
“these were real places of absence, not just an eyesore. . . . I consciously chose
to represent these places in terms of absence and loss, rather than the social
change that caused them.”4

Figure 2. Publicity photograph for still/here (2001), 16mm, 60 min., b/w, sound; by Christopher
Harris. Courtesy of the artist.

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T e r r i F r a n c i s / Close-Up Gallery 213

3. Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez (Figures 3 and 4)

Dinorah de Jesús Rodríguez is a Miami-­based film/video artist and freelance
writer working with expanded cinema, experimental film, video art, installa-
tion, and pub­lic intervention. On her website, Rodriguez states, “In my pub­
lic intervention and site-­based installation work my vision is to establish ar-
chival existence in the collective experience, propelling the cinematic image
beyond its conventional venues and freeing the viewer from predisposed ex-
pectations about how to look at film. Defying the standing assumption that
art is created primarily for commercial consumption or archival conserva-
tion, I of­ten tear apart one work to create another from the same footage,
or project origi­nal works until they deteriorate.”5 Internet modes are criti­
cal to Rodriguez’s practice because she preserves her hand-­made films digi-
tally online, making them accessible through her site and youtube.com. A
new project mujer_cita_MIA, a series of videos to be presented in pub­lic la-
dies’ rooms across Miami, draws material from Twitter and comments to a
blog the artist created.

Figure 3. Still from Is It True Blondes Have More FUN? (2005), 16mm, direct filmmaking; by
Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez. Courtesy of the artist.

Rodriguez aims her work at the subconscious, saying her artistic goal
is to “affect the electromagnetic energy of her audience through subliminal
manipulation of the subconscious.”6 Performing a kind of graffiti, the film-
maker says she aims to take over mass media and advertising strategies, such
as the formulaic use of light and sound cues and applying hidden messages

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214 BLACK CAMERA 5:1

in single film frames, turning them back on master narratives of desire and
womanhood.
Rodriguez’s direct filmmaking process is a combination of primitive
craft, appropriation, and hybrid technologies. As illustrated here, she of­ten
marks on appropriated images that have served as cultural icons, changing
or revealing their meaning. She creates direct film animations, investing hun-
dreds of hours of real-­time to color and scratch frame by frame upon cellu-
loid, yielding three minutes of screen-­time and, she hopes, “The product at
the end of that laborious task is a distressed, fleeting image that leaves the
audience unsure of what they saw and didn’t see, creating a rich and fertile
ground for questioning.”7

Figure 4. Process still. Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez hand-­colors & draws on celluloid using such
tools and materials as fine-­point markers, silk dyes applied with a watercolor brush, and etching
needles. Courtesy of the artist.

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T e r r i F r a n c i s / Close-Up Gallery 215

4. Frances Bodomo (Figures 5 and 6)

In 1964, immediately following Zambia’s independence, grade school sci-
ence teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso set up the Zambia National Academy
of Science, Space Research, and Astronomical Research in an old farmhouse
seven miles outside of Lusaka. Without resources (the £7,000,000 grant he
applied to from UNESCO never came through), he hoped to launch a space-
girl (17-­year-­old Matha) and two cats into space before America or Rus-
sia could. To prepare his astronauts, Nkoloso rolled them down hills in 44-­
gallon oil drums or cut the rope of a swing at its highest point to simu-
late weightlessness. We do not know what became of them, other than that
Matha became pregnant and was taken away by her parents.

Figure 5. Cast and crew on the set of Afronauts (2013), a short film about the Cold War−era
Zambian space program, by Frances Bodomo. The film’s cast includes Diandra Forrest, Yolonda
Ross, and Hoji Fortuna. Courtesy of the artist.

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216 BLACK CAMERA 5:1

Figure 6. Diandra Forrest in costume in Afronauts. Courtesy of the artist.

Director Frances Bodomo states, “I am extremely excited to tell an under­

dog story from the perspective of exiles and outsiders, the people who most
need the promises of the space race. The people whose stories are lost or si-
lenced to an iconic mainstream history that documents fact. What do you do
when you can’t get ‘out there’? We are interested in telling an imagined history,
a history for those who—resourceless—are forgotten to the pages of written
history. We are interested in following characters that have not been able to
find a home on earth and are therefore most attracted to the promise of the
space race. We are interested in talking about lack of access to science, and
different definitions of technological advancement. We are interested in ex-
ploring modern-­day myths: the iconic place of the Apollo 11 touchdown in
our collective consciousness, and the importance of myth in an enlightened
age of scientific exploration.”8

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T e r r i F r a n c i s / Close-Up Gallery 217

5. Terence Nance (Figures 7, 8, 9, and 10)

Synopsis: You’ve just arrived home after a bad day. You’re broke and lonely,
even though you live in the biggest and busiest city in America. You do, how-
ever, have one cause for mild optimism: you seem to have captured the at-
tention of an intriguing young lady. You’ve rushed home to clean your apart-
ment before she comes over. In your haste, you see that you’ve missed a call.
There’s a voice mail; she tells you that she won’t be seeing you tonight.

Figure 7. Film still from An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012) by Terence Nance. Shot by set
photographer Charla Harlow. Courtesy of the artist.

Figure 8. Film still from An Oversimplification of Her Beauty. Illustration by Stephanie Matthews,
animated by Terence Nance. Courtesy of the artist.

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Figure 9. Film still from An Oversimplification of Her Beauty. Wooden puppet fabricated by Natasha
Harrison, animated by Leo and Natasha. Courtesy of the artist.

“This brisk and self-­searching, sharply intelligent and deeply vulnerable

romantic comedy is a masterwork of reflexive construction.” The young di-
rector, Terence Nance, builds the film around his 2006 short How Would
You Feel?, a love story in the conditional mode in which he co-­stars with
Namik Minter—both playing themselves—to depict the course of their ten-
tative relationship.9
“Nance, who has a fine-­arts background, elaborates the story with whim-
sical and enticing animations, multimedia collages, and copious subtitles and

Figure 10. Film still from An Oversimplification of Her Beauty. Rotoscope Animation by Terence
Nance and Samantha Corey. Courtesy of the artist.

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T e r r i F r a n c i s / Close-Up Gallery 219

intertitles, as well as with an intricate and archly funny non-­stop monologue

of psychological self-­revelation.”10
“An Oversimplification of Her Beauty is an experimental film by Terence
Nance that recreates the unspoken space amid friendship and relationships.
Starring Terence Nance himself and the girl with whom he is caught up in
this difficult dance, the film shifts between reconstruction and reimagining
using both animation and live action. Whilst the voiceover attempts to ques-
tion the power of emotional memory, where the line between fact and re-
ality, fantasy and fiction in actuality lie, it is his telling woven into this vision
that promulgates an earnest cultural dialogue.”11

Notes

1. Thomas Cripps, “Definitions,” Black Film as Genre (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versity Press, 1978), 3.

2. Cauleen Smith, The Association for the Advancement of Cinematic Creative Mal-
adjustment: A Manifesto (Los Angeles: Nationsack Filmworks, 2012), 6. This pamphlet
accompanies the pub­lic event Skowhegan and Whitewalls Conversation #3: Cauleen Smith
and Greg Tate present The Association for the Advancement of Cinematic Creative Malad-
justment which took place Janu­ary 15, 2012, at the New Museum, New York, New York.
First printing, edition of one hundred.

3. This quotation is taken from Christopher Harris’s own program notes for the Uni-
versity of Chicago’s screening of still/here in 2002. See http://filmstudiescenter.uchicago
.edu/events/2002/stillhere, accessed May 12, 2013.
4. Christopher Harris, “Still Life,” Commonspace, Janu­ary 2001.

5. “Dinorah de Jesùs Rodgriguez,” http://solislandmediaworks.com, accessed June
4, 2013.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.
8. Tambay Obenson, “Watch Striking Teaser For Frances Bodomo’s ‘Afronauts’,”
Shadow and Act blog on the Indiewire Network of film sites, April 16, 2013, http://blogs
.indiewire.com/shadowandact/watch-­striking-­teaser-­for-­frances-­bodomos-­afronauts, ac-
cessed May 31, 2013.

9. Richard Brody, “Film File,” review of An Oversimplification of Her Beauty by Ter-
ence Nance, The New Yorker, April 23, 2013, http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews
/film/an_oversimplification_of_her_beauty_nance, accessed May 31, 2013.
10. Ibid.

11. Hana Riaz, “The Art of Decolonial Love: Terence Nance and An Oversimplifi-
cation of Her Beauty,” Hana Riaz blog, May 22, 2013, http://hanariaz.com/2013/05/22
/the-­art-­of-­decolonial-­love-­terence-­nance-­and-­an-­oversimplification-­of-­her-­beauty/, ac-
cessed May 31, 2013.

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