RITUAL CAUSALITY 001

AUX Performance Space 319 N 11th Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA

"Ritual...is a complex of words and actions...it is not the case that words are one thing and the rite another. The uttering of the words itself is a ritual." - Leach

Black Quantum Futurism presents its first 2-hour gallery performance RITUAL CAUSALITY 001 featuring ancient anthropological finds, African/Black Diasporic time and memory rituals, and live sound experiments. Experience BQF theorists discovering the first computer in 100bc, lecturing on Sun Ra synchronicities, and Quantum Mapping our collective futures. RITUAL CAUSALITY 001 is a retrocausal retrospective starting with the latest BQF work, ANTI-KY-THE/RA, then spiraling backwards to the beginning with the NonLocality series. BQF's first exhibition of works will be a multimedia experience that will include dance, sound, projections and speculative literary performances.

$7 – $10

NOWTOPIA

Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at Drexel University's URBN Annex 3401 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, PA

|̿ \͇| |͇̿ ͇̿ ͇̿| \͇ Λ ͇/ ̿ ̿|̿ ̿ |͇̿ ͇̿ ͇̿| |̶̿ ̶̿ ̶̿ ̶̿' | |̶̿ ̶̿ ̶̿ ̶̿|

Nowtopia is a place, an existence, a conciousness. Nowtopia is a constantly moving, intricate journey, a swim through nebula, the wet starstuff of human birth.

A SPECIAL INTERMEDIA EVENING WITH METROPOLARITY x COUNTERFEIT x MARTINPEEVES

AT DREXEL UNIVERSITY'S LEONARD PEARLSTEIN GALLERY

UP IN THE HALLS OF THE IVORY TOWERS

AFROFUTURES_UK Conference & Exhibition Weekend

MAD LAB Manchester Digital Laboratory 36-40 Edge Street , Manchester

AfroFutures_UK is a weekend event celebrating the intersection of futurism and the black experience. Featuring artists, academics, and activists, they aim to promote Afrofuturistic endeavours in the arts and technology. Metropolarity's own Rasheedah Phillips, founder of the AfroFuturist Affair and Black Quantum Futurism collective, will be there as a guest speaker.

Afrofuturism NOW!

WORM Boomgaardsstraat 71, Rotterdam

The avant-garde is black! Afrofuturism is a cultural movement that has been existing for a couple of decades in America, Europe and Africa. Some prominent Afrofuturists are Sun Ra, George Clinton, Jeff Mills and Science Fiction writer Octavia Butler. Today, there's a new wave of Afrofuturist writers, performers, visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, bloggers, activists. Contemporary Afrofuturists - Rasheedah Phillips, Ytasha Womack, King Britt and many others - fuse science fiction imagination with avant-garde & DIY culture while reflecting black diaspora.

From 14th to 17th October, WORM will celebrate contemporary Afrofuturism with the festival "Afrofuturism Now!". In preparation of this event, our program will look back at the roots of this super-interesting cultural movement, with an extensive film program and a lecture in June.

Soft Targets: Vulnerability and Violence in the New Post-Apocalypse

Free Library of Philadelphia Parkway Central Location 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA

Join Metropolarity, APIARY Magazine, and the Free Library of Philadelphia for an afternoon of writers’ workshops and readings. This year, Metropolarity and APIARY Magazine have joined forces to produce a sci-fi themed issue exploring the nature of vulnerability in our present realities of mass incarceration, mass surveillance, social media, and the potential for revolution. This event is part of the Free Library of Philadelphia's local iteration of the national 7 Days of Genius Festival #thatsgenius

11:00 A.M. – 1:00 P.M. One-on-one writers’ coaching with Apiary Magazine. Bring your own writing, and you’ll receive feedback. First come first served. (Grand Lobby)

1:00 P.M. – 3:00 P.M. SOFT TARGETS: Science Fiction as memoir in a reality of apocalypse. A workshop with the writers from Metropolarity about living under capitalism/militarism and using that as inspiration for writing (Room 108).

3:30 P.M. – 5:00 P.M. Reading and Q & A with Metropolarity and friends (Montgomery Auditorium).

FREE

Re-Present-Ing: Freedom, Fiction, & Science by Humans

Wooden Shoe Books & Records 704 South Street, Philadelphia, PA

Sirius JuJu
David Xu Borgonjon
Rasheedah Phillips
Laboria Cuboniks
Anthony Monteiro
PANEL/QnA

from the SOTHIS platform for the advancement of intelligent life-forms:

Present (noun) "this period of time, not the past or the future; now"
Re- (prefix) "used with the meaning “again” or “again and again” to indicate repetition, or with the meaning “back” or “backward” to indicate withdrawal or backward motion"
Present (verb) "to give, show, provide, or make known"
-Ing (suffix) "Art is not a be-ing, but a Being, the simple noun. It is not the verb, but its product." -Leroi Jones

$5-20 no one turned away

$$5 – $$10

STREET THEORY RETURNS: OPEN ACCESS SOCIAL CRITICISM OPEN MIC NIGHT

COMMUNITY POTLUCK & OPEN ACCESS SOCIAL CRITICISM OPEN MIC NIGHT DETAILS TBA THE LAST ONE: Metropolarity presents a night of community building and sharing. We seek social criticism from the community--performance art, blog rants, monologues, critical sci-fi, thesis excerpts, protest songs--whatever. As long as it explores and dissects the world we live in today. We […]

Community Futures Lab Opening Reception

Community Futures Lab 2204 Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia, PA

Black Quantum Futurism/ The AfroFuturist Affair celebrate the opening of our new space COMMUNITY FUTURES LAB!

Over the next year, Black Quantum Futurism will be building and enacting a quantum time capsule, exploring oral histories/futures, preservation, displacement, and alternative temporalities within the North Philadelphia community known as Sharswood/Blumberg. “Community Futurisms” will document the redevelopment of Sharswood/Blumberg, through a multidisciplinary community art project that explores the intersections of futurism, literature, visual remixing, sound, and activism as art.

Join us on June 18, 2016 as we open the COMMUNITY FUTURES LAB, which will function as a resource library, community studio and gallery, workshop space, story recording booth, thinktank, experimental space and more.

ALL AGES
Light refreshments
Soundscapes + Projections by BQF
konja sound by Sirius JuJu
reading by Moor Mother
fly life sounds by Alexoteric

FREE

Apiary x METROPOLARITY Soft Targets Launch Party

Painted Bride ArtsCenter 230 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA

all danger all softness no geolocation
1 nite revelry spells and sanctuary
texts songs dances
against the gathering data storm

this portal exists when we begin
this portal ends at midnight

APIARY MAGAZINE x METROPOLARITY
:
SOFT TARGETS
issue 8 of APIARY in collabo with sci-fi collective METROPOLARITY.
read philadelphia's visions of vulnerability, violence and ecstasy;
survival strategies in our contested city;
the monstrous and tender contending inside us

7 PM: PARTING OF TIME AND SPACE // AIRPLANE MODE
enter.
drinks (government ID checked at door)
new names (memorywipe your government ID)
anti-surveillance face & body art

8-10 PM INCANTATIONS FOR INVISIBILITY
readings by 25+ storyspinners and poets
frequency lifting by the URBAN SHAMANS word/sounds/power:afrobeat funk jazz

10-MIDNIGHT DANCE PARTY
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ FEATURING ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
⚡ Anti-facial recognition face painting and body art by Kitakiya Davis
♪ Live musical performance by Philly's URBAN SHAMANS: afrobeat funk jazz grooves, WORDS, SOUNDS, and POWER!
♪ DJ wizardry by Alex Smith (of METROPOLARITY)

MIDNIGHT-??? AFTERPARTY @ SILK CITY
may the ephemeral gather strength and carry us through the night

PAY WHAT YOU CAN: $7-10 SUGGESTED DONATION

$7 – $10

Sharswood Community Clean-up Day

Community Futures Lab 2204 Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia, PA

Join the Ridge Avenue Block Captain, Community Futures Lab and Sharswood (North Philly) residents, neighbors, and business owners for a community clean-up day! Brooms, bags, and other supplies will be provided, as well as refreshments. Come anytime between the hours of 9am and 1pm, and bring a friend! Date: Saturday, August 20 Time: 9am-2pm Meeting […]

ELBOW GREASE

MOOGFEST

Moogfest is the synthesis of music, art and technology. Catch our workshops & reading events alongside Black Quantum Futurism collective as part of this year's 'Future Thought' programming at MOOGFEST in Durham. It's $$$ tho so don't stress – we do our thing regularly around the city of Philadelphia.

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2017 Lambda Literary Awards

YOUR LOCAL SCI-FI SQUAD IS NOMINATED FOR A LAMMY IN SCI-FI/FANTASY/HORROR. CROSS YR FINGERS! WE'RE ROLLING DEEP TO THE AWARD CEREMONY.

ABOUT THE LAMMYS
The Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”) identify and celebrate the best lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books of the year and affirm that LGBTQ stories are part of the literature of the world. The Lammys, which receive national and international media attention, bring together 600 attendees—including nominees, celebrities, sponsors, and publishing executives—to celebrate excellence in LGBTQ publishing. It is the most prestigious and glamorous LGBTQ literary event in the world.

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