The Future Is Pynk: Resistance In the Afrofuturist Aesthetic of Janelle Monáe

Abstract

This dissertation contextualizes Afrofuturism within the realm of aesthetics of resistance. Afrofuturism can be characterized as being a disruption within whitewashed epistemological discourses that are used to interpret and create new technologies and futuristic ideological paradigms. This project constructs a theoretical framework that posits the reconfiguration of Eurocentric ideals regarding racial politics, resistance and science fiction. This framework disregards post-race speculative discourses and instead focuses on constructing racial and ethnic imaginings in the future that reflect and resist the notions of inferiority that minoritized cultures are subjected to. The visual and textual aesthetics of Janelle Monáe's 'emotion picture' Dirty Computer are contextualized using this methodology as groundwork. Monáe's work is further interpreted as an example of liberation technology due to her construction of a futuristic representational apparatus that allows her to convey the idea of existence within the 'future imaginaries'.