John Akomfrah and the Black Audio Film Collective

The Ghanaian-born British video artist John Akomfrah (*1957) co-founded the influential Black Audio Film Collective, which in 1986 made the essay film HANDSWORTH SONGS for Channel 4. The collective chose a narrative form that consciously distanced itself from established film conventions in order to question the practices and ideologies of mainstream media. In the audiovisual collage, television reports and newspaper clippings about the Handsworth riots of 1985 are combined with interviews and archive material and accompanied by a catchy dub soundtrack and lyrical voiceover. Instead of factual analysis, the focus is on metanarratives, personal reflections and ghost stories. In the 1995 Afrofuturist music documentary THE LAST ANGEL OF HISTORY, which was shot on video and produced by Channel 4 and ZDF, Akomfrah follows the fictional story of the time-traveling protagonist Data Thief. Tracing fragments of jazz compositions by Sun Ra, the narratives of the Detroit techno label Underground Resistance and interviews with the writer Kodwo Eshun (More Brilliant Than the Sun), Data Thief searches for a code that holds the key to his future.

Films:
Handsworth Songs John Akomfrah UK 1986 Digital file engl. OV 61 min.
The Last Angel of History John Akomfrah UK/D 1995 Digital file engl. OV 45 min.