METROPOLARITY is a corner store sci-fi & action collective based, bred, and tested in the colliding future-present of Philadelphia.
METROPOLARITY: The manifestation of contrasting principles, tendencies, or lifestyles in an urban system and any reactions resulting from encounters between these forces.
We are a transtemporalspatial neighborhood we are city we are low income working class working always working survivors mothers professionals non-academics hashtag queer hashtag blacknbrown hashtag nonbinary walking w a k i n g portals of the African Caribbean mestiza European diasporas. We are four directions coming together.
We wield “science fiction” voice and word to manifest world-paradigms necessary for our survival. Empire does not welcome this. Ride with us against empire.
HELLO AND WE JACKED THIS CODE OFF LIES JOURNAL <3. HACK THE PLANET 2016.
You may download full PDFs of our past zines, purchase our book, or interface with the individual pieces below.
| 2017 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in LGBTQ SF/F/Horror
"Style of Attack is amazing! It's like our generation's Snow Crash but way better; feel like it's exactly the kind of work that people need to be making and reading right now. Metropolarity is killing it." |
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| METROPOLARITY is a DIY sci-fi collective based, bred, and tested in the colliding future-present of Philadelphia. This Style of Attack Report contains select work from METROPOLARITY's four founding members, who contribute theory, practice, and experience of home grown speculative visioning for both historical documentation as well as personal and collective survival. The collection serves as a model and a record of how Black, brown, queer, low-resource, working, ill and in-recovery people can project themselves into the future, conjuring resources, technology, and magic that aid us in the present.
Also this sci-fi is FIRE cuz the crew don't play. 122 pages 4.25" x 7" 13.00 USD Buy Now For wholesale, contact metropolarity at gmail. Request a copy at your local library. Add it to your Goodreads. |
| The Ark Charted Prism That Promised It's Light |
| Galactic |
| The Three Known Tales of Hatim Muzumbo |
| And Now I Am the Loveliest |
JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE VISION & CRITICAL LIBERATION TECHNOLOGIES: SE 2 EP 1 |
FULL PDF |
| A Young Thug Confronts His Own Future | |
| IT IS OKAY - Laura Pollard | |
| SPONSORED MESSAGES from grey nebraska | |
| commentary from Azeem Hill, Fred Pinguel, n Carolyn Lazard | |
| BATTLEFIELD REPLICA SYMMETRY RETROSPECTA - Moor Mother | |
| THE 40TH ST. CON - Skribbly LaCroix | |
| CONSTANTEMIEDOCONSTANTE - Natis | |
| DISTRICTS - Aja Beech | |
| FLYBOYS - Billie Blazer | |
| G.P.S. - Althea Baird | |
| LIFE ONLINE WORKSHEET - Eighteen & Ras | |
| PORTRAIT OF THE ACTIVIST AS A YOUNG SUPER-HERO - Alex Smith | |
| BLACK QUANTUM FUTURISM - Rasheedah Phillips |
JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE VISION & CRITICAL LIBERATION TECHNOLOGIES: PILOT + SE01 EP01 |
FULL PDF |
| Gentry | |
| Yolanda | |
| The Great Collapse and Our New Community | |
| D.I.Y. Wormhole | |
| IS SCI-FI POLITICAL: Our intentions | |
| In Which Afro-Barista Dreams of a White Dwarf Star | |
PILOT EPISODE - THE POLITICAL |
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| Hello Hello - Shane Jenkins | |
| The PTSD - R.Phillips | |
| Redundancies - Warren Longmire | |
| Culling the Herd - C. Renee Stephens | |
| Cyborg Apocalypse - M Eighteen Téllez | |
| Networks | |
| Resource Spotlight | |
| Crew Love | |
EPISODE 01- SPACE INVADERS |
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| The Adhesion of the Eyelids - Patrokolos | |
| A 21st Century Mind Revolution - Melissa Moore | |
| Creating New Space-Times - R. Phillips | |
| centerfold - Pyroglyphics/Shawn Alleyne | |
| Networks | |
| Resource Spotlight | |
| Crew Love |
All capital gain from the sale of our products go towards further propaganda efforts + getting things done in the city for us and ours.
Online |
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| METROPOLARITY DISTRO | All In Stock Items |
PHILADELPHIA |
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| Free Library of Philadelphia | Book |
| Bindlestiff Books | Book |
| Penn Book Center | Book |
| Omoi Zakka Shop | Book |
| Wooden Shoe Books | Book, Stickers |
BRITISH COLUMBIA |
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| Spartacus Books, Vancouver | Book |
CALIFORNIA |
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| Green Apple Books, San Francisco | Book |
| Owl Cave Books, San Francisco | Book |
| Southern Exposure, San Francisco | Book |
MINNESOTA |
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| Boneshaker Books, Minneapolis | Book |
NEW YORK |
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| Bluestockings Bookstore, Lower East Side | Book |
WASHINGTON |
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| Left Bank Books Collective, Seattle | Book |
R. CUTLASS MASHRAMANI |
R Cutlass Mashramani was born to two parents: immigration and high-intensity media saturation. She was raised by the Santa Ana winds, casareep, and the PATH train. She writes about the monstrosities inherent in the bodies and cultures of girlthings, DIY coping mechanisms in the form of virtual spaces, and how madness shapes and creates reality. She is a founding member of METROPOLARITY, and a recent a recipient of the Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant, which funded her forthcoming sci-fi paranoia thriller, NO CALL//NOSHOW. In a parallel universe, she is a mental health worker. You can find her work by utilizing your friendly neighborhood online surveillance unit. She has no time. @ANTI_GYAL on Twitter |
ALEX SMITH |
Alex Smith exists in the seams in the cloth of existence where he desperately stitches together universes with one hand and with the other, armed with a espresso tamp, makes valiant attempts to keep his lights on. Smith's writing was born in a confusing mire of slam poetry, house/vogue culture, and the DIY community, his work forever damaged by retro-futurist cinema and Silverhawks cartoons. This cosmic eclecticism has led to the shattering of several go-nowhere punk bands and the inevitable demise of his superstar DJ career. A member of the sci-fi artist/activist collective METROPOLARITY, the founder of the queer sci-fi reading series Laser Life, and curator of the retro-futurist electro mash-up art-jam Chrome City, Alex's stories and writings emboldened the weird, strange, and revolutionary dichotomy of being black and queer in a world that marginalizes both. Selected by Rosarium Publishing for the anthology dedicated to the writing of Samuel Delany, Stories for Chip and for Black Quantum Futurism's Space-Time Collapse: From the Congo to the Carolinas, it's Smith’s flash fiction collection Gang Stalk Oprah, self-published sci-fi zine A R K D U S T and super-hero space opera comic book BELIEVERS that will kidnap you, convert you, shoot you in the leg and then set you free. @AlexSmi54827599 on Twitter |
M TÉLLEZ |
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M is a hybrid mestizx cyborg who writes and performs speculative fiction about bodies/objectification, intimacy/class, neighborhood/land/community, and the violence in relying on binaries to order the world. They were born and raised by the city of Philadelphia, built by stolen bodies on the stolen lands of the now displaced Lenni Lenape. M is frustrated/pissed with institutional legitimacy/charity, anti-blackness by white forgetting, and fixed treatments of language and identity. They serve as Minister of Crossroads and founding member of METROPOLARITY, we who use speculative thinking as a shield and wand against standing empire. M considers the common word a handy and inexpensive tool for deconstructing oppressive world-ordering narratives. @cyborgmemoirs around town cyborgmemoirs.com Subscribe to M's newsletter |
RASHEEDAH PHILLIPS |
R. Phillips. is a practicing attorney, a mother, writer, the creator of The AfroFuturist Affair, the co-creator of Black Quantum Futurism multimedia arts collective, and 1/4th founding member of METROPOLARITY. In 2014 independently published her first speculative fiction collection, Recurrence Plot(and Other Time Travel Tales), followed by two anthologies of experimental essays from Black visionary writers called Black Quantum Futurism and Space Time Collapse. As part of BQF Collective, Phillips was a 2015 Artist-in-Residence at West Philadelphia Neighborhood Time Exchange, is a 2016 A Blade of Grass Fellow, and has exhibited and performed at Temple Contemporary, Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago, and WORM! Rotterdam, Holland, Kimia in Copenhagen, Denmark and more. Phillips has work appearing in the book Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late Capitalist Struggle and Unveiling Visions: The Alchemy of the Black Imagination exhibition catalogue, Temple University Political and Civil Rights Journal, and other publications. Stay up to date and subscribe to the Future Light Cone newsletter. @afrofuturaffair on Twitter Purchase House of Future Sciences books |
We work for free for the people. We work for institutions only in exchange for financial compensation.
All that you can imagine, we shall present it in human form, downloaded from our frontal lobe and into your cerebrum. Workshops, rituals, readings! Invite us to your school, your universities, your utopian gatherings. Seriously, dreams await and METROPOLARITY is here for you. Your sonic alter chiming, your cyborg Santeria, your moonbeam teleport dust ride into the future.
We can provide:
1. Thematic readings or lectures based on our work with subsequent Q&A. The four members of METROPOLARITY operate as individuals and as a group and sub-groups, willing to give voice in their particular understanding. These ideas are expressed through short sci-fi/speculative fiction stories, lectures, slide shows and are sometimes accompanied by music.
2. Workshops on zine writing, ritual practices from various disaporas, literature, DIY culture and distribution and how it relates to disenfranchised communities, sci-fi, afrofuturism, cyborgs, early internet culture, and vision-driven speculative fiction.
Serious inquiries, please see our contact information below.
Coming one day.
METROPOLARITY: La manifestación de principios, tendecias, o estilos de vida que contrastan en un sistema urbano así como de reacciones producto del encuentro entre estas fuerzas.
METROPOLARITY nació en el verano pixeleado del 2012, desesperadxs por un espacio donde la tecnología y comunidad pudiesen encontrarse. Un colectivx que utiliza la ciencia ficción como herramienta para la especulación, conformado por escritorxs/artistas/activistas nacidxs/criadxs en Filadelfia. Pobres y de la clase trabajadora, de bajos recursos, queer, trans, sobrevivientes, madres, profesionistas, no académicxs, gloriosxs, amorfxs caminantxs de los límites y espacios, soñadorxs citadinxs de las diasporas Africana/Caribeña/mestiza/Europea. METROPOLARITY cree firmemente que aquellxs desempoderadxs deben tomar ventaja y control de los medios de comunicación a los que se tenga acceso. METROPOLARITY ha escogido la ciencia ficción como su prisma para manifestar los paradigmas del mundo necesarios para la sobrevivencia. Somos destructorxs y resurrectos.
HERALD
1. NUESTRA CIENCIA FICCIÓN ES NUESTRA REALIDAD
No todxs aquí hemos nacido en bandeja de plata, o en una nave espacial teñida tipo tie-dyed. Queremos lo filoso y áspero, la suciedad, la tierra, y que el acero se doble ante nuestros pies al tiempo que caminamos hacia la luna y las estrellas. Porque nuestra realidad no esta divorciada de nuestros sueños, le damos voz a la pasión de nuestros sueños.
2. NUESTRA GENERACIÓN ES ETERNA
Somos androides soñando con oevajas eléctricas, yendo a 20,000 leguas debajo de la tierra, desenterrando pergáminos perdidos y parabólas de sembradorxs olvidadas. Estamos en comunión con los Griots, los Orishas, lxs magxs y lxs videntes. Somos demonios, sabixs los somos y seremos por siempre.
3. NUESTRAS PERCEPCIONES NO SON NUESTRAS!
Lo que parece una cuchara no es una cuchara. Podemos explotar como 1000 arcoiris en un bosque sombrío, o llenar de psicoldeía tus vagones de tren, convertir balas en luciérnagas y el asfalto en nubes.
4. NUESTRA CIENCIA FICCIÓN ES NUESTRO NUEVA MITOLOGÍA
Aquellos pergaminos y escrituras arcaicos están deshilachados y rotos, reescritos por ogros para adaptarse a sus propias necesidades a través del tiempo, hacia atrás y hacia adelante al derecho y al revés una y otra vez. Nosotrxs tejemos cuentos de callejones llenos de confetti, de pasillos de vecindades cubiertos con el polvo de castillos, de hogueras y ritalues en los lotes baldíos. Creemos en el poder de estos rituales, este poder es nuestra guía.
5. NUESTRA CRITICISMO ES UN VIAJE A LO FANTÁSTICO!
Como una polilla de cristal, en el aire con sus alas translúcidas, la pregunta esta en el aire: ¿qué hay de nuestro futuro, qué hay de nuestra piel? Creemos en desconectarnos de la máquina, en sacar de nosotrxs los microchips y los dispositivos de rastreo incrustrados en nuestros lóbulos, y antes de aplastarlos, hacercelos saber, queremos que lo sepan. Somos lxs reporterxs en una arcoiristopía.
6. NUESTRA VOZ ES LA CANTO DE LXS SIN VOZ!
No nos esconderemos más tras bambalinias en sus bazares, acurrucados sobre brasas ardientes en las esquinas frías de sus bibliotecas, no seremos más lxs personajes perdidxs y olvidadxs detrás de la figura del Capitán Kirk de Star Trek. No tomaremos sus placebos, hemos escondido detrás de nuestras encías las malditas pildoras para después escupirlas como diamantes, para limpiar nuestra lengua, para aclarar nuestras gargantas listxs para cantar.
7. NUESTRO SUEÑO ESPACIAL ES NUESTRA COMUNA!
Una comuna de hadas en lo profundo del espacio; niñxs callejerxs astronautas; cuerpos en las bodegas con su espíritu despedazado. Ofrecemos un nuevo espacio para las nuevas visiones e imaginarios de identidad entre aquellxs desposeídos, entrelazadxs en la arena de nuevos comienzos.
8. NUESTRA CIENCIA FICCIÓN ES NUESTRA LIBERACIÓN!
Para poder ir más allá al mismo tiempo en que incorporaramos géneros, cuerpos, etnicidades, religiones, identidades sexuales, con las luces de trasfondo en las ciudades, detrás de una pantalla verde cósmica, donde los grilletes de cada -ismo caigan sobre una página todavía húmeda como el rocío de una fresca mañana. Queremos la libertad para determinar nuestro propio destino, en nuestro tiempo, en nuestro espacio, en nuestros sueños, en nuestra metropolaridad.
Chilango spanish translation provided by the homie Ana
METROPOLARITY is seeking artists, educators, activists, and non-specifics for community building, skill-sharing, and narrative creation. We regularly do collab events, DIY publications, workshops, panels, and other shit they don’t teach you in school. Take a look at our past events for an idea of our past efforts.
For this and/or wholesale orders and bulk discount (10+) book orders, please .
Not all of us here are born with a silver spoon, tie-dyed space ship. We want the gristle, the grime, the earth, and steel to bend beneath our feet as we navigate towards the moon and the stars. Because we’re not divorced from the reality of our nightmares, we give voice to the passion of our dreams.
These are androids dreaming of electric sheep, going 20,000 leagues below the surface, scraping up lost scrolls and parables of forgotten sowers. We commune with the griots, the orishas, the wizards and the soothsayers. We are always imp, always sage, always forever.
What looks like a spoon isn’t (is) a spoon. We can burst like 1,000 rainbows in dreary forest, or pour onto your subway cars in psychedelic sprawl, turn bullets into fireflies and asphalt into cloud.
Those ancient scrolls and scriptures are tattered and torn, rewritten by ogres to fit their own needs throughout time, forward and back again. We graft tales of exploding confetti in alleyways, of dust strewn castles in tenement hallways and of new, unfolding rituals in parking lot bonfires. We believe in their power, their power it guides us.
Like a glass moth, in the air on wings of gossamer, the questions rise: what of our future, what of our skin? We believe in unplugging from the machine, in taking the microchips and tracking devices lodged in our lobes and, before smashing them, acknowledging them, making them known. We are the reporters in a rainbowtopia.
No more will we slink into the back of the bazaar, huddled over embers in the cold spaces of your library, forgotten and lost playing back up to Captain Kirk. We slipped the bad pills behind our gums and ignored the placebos, to spit them out later as diamonds, to clear our tongues, to sing.
A faerie commune in deep space; street corner kid as astronaut; man in bodega as a disembodied spirit. We present this as offering space for new visions and imaginings of identity among the disenfranchised, entwined in the arena of new beginnings.
To simultaneously go beyond and embody gender, body, ethnicity, religion, sexual identity, with the city backlit on a cosmic green screen, where the shackles of every “-ism” falls as fresh morning dew subtly on a still wet page. We want freedom to determine our destiny, in our time, in our space, in our dreams, in our metro polarity.