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Kodwo Eshun (born 1967) is a British -Ghanaian writer, theorist and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his 1998 book ''More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction'' and his association with the art collective The Otolith Group. He currently teaches on the MA in Contemporary Art Theory in the Department of Visual Cultures at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, and at CCC Research Master Program of the Visual Arts Department at

HEAD A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...

(Geneva School of Art and Design).

Early life and education

Kodwo Eshun was born and raised in the far northern suburbs of London. His father was a prominent diplomat to the United Kingdom. His family is of the

Fante people The Mfantsefo or Fante ("Fanti" is an older spelling) are an Akan people. The Fante people are mainly located in the Central and Western coastal regions of Ghana. Over the last half century, due to fishing expeditions, Fante communities are foun ...

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

, and his younger brother is the author and journalist

Ekow Eshun Ekow Eshun (born 27 May 1968) is a British writer, journalist, broadcaster, and curator. He is the editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine ''Tank'', a former editor of ''Arena'' magazine, and the former director of the Institute of Contempor ...

. As a youth, Eshun undertook a study of comic books,

J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass med ...

, and rock music. According to his brother, Eshun was heavily disturbed and influenced by the 1979 coup of Ghana carried out by J. J. Rawlings. He studied

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

(

BA Hons Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

, MA Hons) at University College, Oxford University, and Romanticism and Modernism MA Hons at

Southampton University , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

. In his first book, Kodwo Eshun devised a unique page-numbering system, beginning in negative numbers. On page −01 017 he wrote: :At 17, Kodwo Eshun won an Open Scholarship to read Law at University College, Oxford. After eight days he switched to Literary Theory, magazine journalism and running clubs. He is not a cultural critic or cultural commentator so much as a concept engineer, an imagineer at the millennium's end writing on electronic music, science fiction, technoculture, gameculture, drug culture, post war movies and post war art for ''The Face, The Wire, i-D, Melody Maker, Spin, Arena'' and ''The Guardian.'' He later described his decision to pursue music journalism professionally as a devotional act that included a

vow of poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

Writing

Eshun's writing deals with

cyberculture Internet culture is a culture based on the many way people have used computer networks and their use for communication, entertainment, business, and recreation. Some features of Internet culture include online communities, gaming, and social media ...

, science fiction and music with a particular focus on where these ideas intersect with the

African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...

. He has contributed to a wide range of publications, including ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

The Face The face is a part of the body, the front of the head. Face may also refer to: Film * ''The Magician'' (1958 film) or ''The Face'' * ''The Face'' (1996 film), an American television film * ''Face'' (1997 film), a British crime drama by Antonia ...

'', ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...

'', '' i-D'', ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

'', '' Spin'', ''

Arena An arena is a large enclosed platform, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators ...

'', ''

Frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

'', ''CR: The New Centennial Review'' and '' 032c''. As of 2002, he has quit music journalism. He now publishes academically, and teaches at

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

, in the Department of Visual Cultures, founded by

Irit Rogoff Irit Rogoff is a writer, theorist, teacher and curator. Her research interests include visual culture; contemporary art and critical theory; postcolonialism, geoculture, and geographies, cultures of education and gender. Rogoff obtained her PhD ...

. In the 1990s, he was affiliated with the

Cybernetic Culture Research Unit The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) was an experimental cultural theorist collective formed in late 1995 at Warwick University, England and gradually separated from academia until it dissolved in 2003. It garnered reputation for its idiosy ...

, a cross-disciplinary research group out of the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

''More Brilliant Than The Sun''

Eshun's book ''More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction'' was published in 1998 and is "At its simplest ... a study of visions of the future in music from

Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific out ...

4 Hero 4hero are an electronic music group from Dollis Hill, London, comprising producers Mark "Marc Mac" Clair & Denis "Dego" McFarlane. While the band is often cited as ''4 Hero'' or ''4-Hero'', the name is stylised as ''4hero'' on their albums and ...

". Written in a style that makes extensive use of

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

, re-appropriated

jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The conte ...

and

compound words In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when ...

, the book explores the intersection of black music and science fiction from an

afrofuturist Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocultur ...

viewpoint.

Architechtronics

''Architechtronics'' is a collaboration by Kodwo Eshun and

Franz Pomassl Pomassl is an electronic sound and recording artist and DJ residing in Vienna, Austria, and is a co-founder of the Austrian Laton experimental techno label. Pomassl has inspired many other analog and digital electronic artists, including member ...

recorded live at the AR-60-Studio (ORF/FM4)

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1998. Eshun's contribution is the recitation of a text entitled ''Black Atlantic Turns on the Flow Line'' which condenses much of the thematic content of ''More Brilliant Than The Sun''.

"Further Considerations on Afrofuturism"

Eshun's article "Further Considerations on Afrofuturism" was published in ''CR: The New Centennial Review'', Volume 3, Number 2, Summer 2003. Through this article, he expounds upon the history and trajectory of

Afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocultu ...

. He illuminates the specific functions of this genre, specifically its ability "to engineer feedback between preferred future and becoming present" and "to encourage a process of disalienation." Eshun deploys an unconventional framing device, inviting the reader to imagine "a team of African archaeologists from the future" attempting to reconstruct 20th-century Afrodiasporic subjectivity through a comparative study of various cultural media and artefacts. This framing technique can be read in terms of Eshun's notion of the "chronopolitical," the "temporal complications and anachronistic episodes that dis- turb the linear time of progress, adjust ngthe temporal logics that condemned black subjects to prehistory." Kodwo, following

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

among others, positions African slaves as the first modern subjects, as well as “real world” subjects of science fiction scenarios. Thus, while hegemonic future projections implicitly or explicitly exclude black subjects from (post)modernity and its attendant techno-scientific innovations and alienations, Afrofuturism highlights the Afrodiasporic subject’s fundamental role in initiating and producing modernity. In other words, Afrofuturism “reorient history,” in part in order to offer counter- or alternative futures. This article can be used as a lens through which to read prominent Afrofuturistic texts, such as Ishmael Reed's '' Mumbo Jumbo'' (1972) and

Samuel Delany Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (, ) (born April 1, 1942), is an American author and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays (on science fiction, literature, sexual orientation, sexuality, a ...

's ''

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand ''Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand'' (1984) is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. It is part of what would have been a "diptych", in Delany's description, of which the second half, ''The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities'' ...

'' (1984). The essay is currently available in the book, ''Boogie Down Predictions: Hip-Hop, Time, and Afrofuturism'' (Strange Attractor, 2022), edited by Roy Christopher.

The Otolith Group

In 2002, Eshun co-founded with Anjalika Sagar The Otolith Group, its name derived from a structure found in the inner ear that establishes our sense of gravity and orientation. Based in London, the group's work engages with archival materials, with futurity and with the histories of

transnationality Transnationality is the principle of acting at a geographical scale larger than that of states, so as to take into account the interests of a supranational entity. Transnational policies or programmes are not simply aggregations of national poli ...

.The Otolith Group, ''The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art Of The Black Audio Film Collective''. The group's projects include film production and exhibition curation as part of an integrated practice with the intended aim to "build a new film culture". The group was nominated for

the Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

in 2010 for its project ''A Long Time Between Suns''.

Publications

*''More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction''. London: Quartet Books. 1998. *"The Microrhythmic Pneumacosm of Hype Williams" in ''Cinesonic: cinema and the sound of music'', edited by Philip Brophy. Sydney: Australian film, television, and radio school. 2000. *"Operating System for the Redesign of Sonic Reality" in ''Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music'', edited by Christoph Cox & Daniel Warner. London: Continuum Books. 2004. *"Learning from Lagos: A Dialogue on the Poetics of Informal Habitation" in ''David Adjaye: Making Public Buildings: Specificity Customization Imbrication'', edited by Peter Allison. London: Thames & Hudson. 2006. *"Drawing the Forms of Things Unknown" and "John Akomfrah in conversation with Kodwo Eshun" in ''The Ghosts Of Songs: The Film Art of The Black Audio Film Collective''. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 2007. *''Post-Punk Then and Now'' (co-editor, with

Mark Fisher Mark Fisher (11 July 1968 – 13 January 2017), also known under his blogging alias k-punk, was an English writer, music critic, political and cultural theorist, philosopher, and teacher based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsm ...

and

Gavin Butt Gavin Butt (born 1967) is a writer and academic based in Brighton, UK Overview Gavin Butt is a transdisciplinary scholar working across the areas of performance studies, queer studies, visual culture, and popular music. He received his PhD from ...

). London:

Repeater Books Repeater Books is a publishing imprint based in London, founded in 2014 by Tariq Goddard and Mark Fisher, formerly the founders of radical publishers Zero Books, along with Etan Ilfeld, Tamar Shlaim, Alex Niven and Matteo Mandarini. Formation ...

. 2016.

References

External links

The Otolith Group homepageInterview with Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun (The Otolith Group)
about their works at the MACBA Collection (2011)
MP3"Archive Portal: Kodwo Eshun's columns"
''

''; October 2015 ("Derek Walmsley picks six columns by Kodwo Eshun in which the future Turner Prize nominee forged a new style of writing about dance music and club culture.") *Geert Lovink
"'Everything was to be done. All the adventures are still there'
– A Speculative Dialogue with Kodwo Eshun", originally published in ''

Telepolis ''Telepolis'' is a German Internet magazine, published by the Heinz Heise Verlag since the beginning of 1996. It was founded by journalists Armin Medosch and Florian Rötzer and deals with privacy, science, culture, internet-related and ge ...

''. *Dirk Van Weelden
"Some Excursions into Sonic Fiction
– A two-step with Kodwo Eshun", Mediamatic. *Christoph Cox
"Afrofuturism, Afro-Pessimism and the Politics of Abstraction: An Interview with Kodwo Eshun".
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eshun, Kodwo Living people 1967 births Alumni of University College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Southampton British writers Black British writers Black British artists British music critics English people of Ghanaian descent The Wire (magazine) writers British filmmakers Afrofuturists