1. Blackness is...
"Blackness is noise".
Blackness is marked by noise.
Blackness lives through noise.
Blackness is the surplus of noise.
The joyful noise of the Blackpentecostal aesthetics is "fundamentally a critique of the given world", a critique of the "coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom" - of 'History' or historicity, a system which has excluded and silenced Black bodies. The joyful noise is an act of refusal and the production of a state of refusal.
2. Sound & Movement
"[Blackness] is color and exceeds the colorful" (Crawley 4 of the pdf)
Blackness is always beyond itself, its defining characteristics, of what it produces - an abounding surplus of what it is and what it can and will be. Working in this vein of excess and surplus, brings us to understanding the breadth of the "joyful noise of the Blackpentecostal". In the same way that Blackness is and exceeds its color and the concept of color, so does Black (joyful) noise exceed the sonic. Blackpentecostal noise is sound and motion - not purely sonic but rather choreosonic. An amalgamation that is more than its synthesis of multiple senses.
and when that joy is unspeakable, it can often be expressed in an alternative, though related fashion - through movement, motion
3. (re)Spatialization
"Liberation cannot come from reworking the already given epistemology by centering blackness, by centering black performance, by centering Blackpentecostal aesthetics. We must think—which is to say, imagine, perform—against such “logical” distinction, and such geometric spatial and temporal
organization." (Crawley 10 of the pdf).
I'm not sure how to formulate my response to this in full sentences so bare with me:
"Blackness is noise".
Blackness is marked by noise.
Blackness lives through noise.
Blackness is the surplus of noise.
The joyful noise of the Blackpentecostal aesthetics is "fundamentally a critique of the given world", a critique of the "coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom" - of 'History' or historicity, a system which has excluded and silenced Black bodies. The joyful noise is an act of refusal and the production of a state of refusal.
2. Sound & Movement
"[Blackness] is color and exceeds the colorful" (Crawley 4 of the pdf)
Blackness is always beyond itself, its defining characteristics, of what it produces - an abounding surplus of what it is and what it can and will be. Working in this vein of excess and surplus, brings us to understanding the breadth of the "joyful noise of the Blackpentecostal". In the same way that Blackness is and exceeds its color and the concept of color, so does Black (joyful) noise exceed the sonic. Blackpentecostal noise is sound and motion - not purely sonic but rather choreosonic. An amalgamation that is more than its synthesis of multiple senses.
and when that joy is unspeakable, it can often be expressed in an alternative, though related fashion - through movement, motion
3. (re)Spatialization
"Liberation cannot come from reworking the already given epistemology by centering blackness, by centering black performance, by centering Blackpentecostal aesthetics. We must think—which is to say, imagine, perform—against such “logical” distinction, and such geometric spatial and temporal
organization." (Crawley 10 of the pdf).
I'm not sure how to formulate my response to this in full sentences so bare with me:
- Creating a new epistemological framework
- Respatializing the organization of 'History'
- Not centring blackness (performance, history, being) within an episteme marked by Whiteness
- Engendering a new world to speak (of) Blackness
- Undoing the empire of western thought through active negation of its relevance
So beautifully said: “In the same way that Blackness is and exceeds its color and the concept of color, so does Black (joyful) noise exceed the sonic. Blackpentecostal noise is sound and motion - not purely sonic but rather choreosonic. An amalgamation that is more than its synthesis of multiple senses.” An elegant way to address the question Nasrin posed about sound and noise.
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