As an introduction, the title of my talk is "New Media and New Black Identities", and is based on a paper currently in progress.

The argument is that two black musicans, Sun Ra and George Clinton, used metaphors of technology in their performances in the 1950s-1970s to create new black histories, forms of politics, identities, and bodies. In so doing, new media forms were mobilized to renegotiate racialized work and translate cultural capital into social, political, and economic capital for blacks in the United States.

Here is an image of Sun Ra, from his movie "Space is the Place", circa 1974.