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Hélio Oiticica and C.L.R. James

Experiments in Alignment and the Persistence of the Motley Crew

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Today’s episode looks at social reproduction on the margins of the state – where there is a vitalizing drive to create life beyond, against, and outside of imposing limitations, and a persistence of radical sociality — a fundamental challenge to the normalized organization of life around degradation and exploitation.

This vitalizing drive is what our guest today, Laura Harris, calls the aesthetic sociality of blackness, taking an expansive notion of blackness to mean an “unruly creativity and disorderly sociality” – that is everything that isn’t allowed within the scope of citizenship.

Harris notes that even bare life can present an experimental outlook oriented toward developing new forms of assemblage with those around us. I

In her recent book, Experiments in Exile: C.L.R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness (Fordham University Press), Harris examines the organizing work of the Trinidadian C.L.R. James and the aesthetic work of the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica and finds a way of living that is aesthetic in its orientation and inherently social and collaborative in its practice.

Born in Trinidad in 1901, C.L.R. James was a political activist who was dedicated to promoting revolutionary struggles all around the world, from anti-colonial movements in Africa and Latin America to labor movements in Europe to the independent Black struggles in the United States. Working largely as an historian and literary figure, James produced a number of important texts that continue to be popular, including The Black Jacobins, a history of the Haitian Revolution, and Beyond a Boundary, an autobiographical account of cricket and its political importance.

Hélio Oiticica, on the other hand, was a Brazilian installation artist whose radical aesthetics left a longstanding impact on the avant-garde scenes in both Brazil and the United States. Born in 1937, Oiticica developed his aesthetic sensibilities while living under a rigid dictatorship in Brazil, eventually going into self-induced exile in the United States to pursue his art. Through his work, Oiticica sought to open up the reception of his art to a process of collaborative engagement, compelling his audiences to interact with his work as well as with each other.

James and Oiticica never met and they worked at separate historical moments and occupied different productive spheres. But their work, when placed in dialogue, brings into relief the practices of a radical sociality that most interest Harris and suggest how blackness, as Harris engages it, can be something beyond the color of one’s skin.

Show producer Cole Nelson begins by asking how Harris conceives of blackness as a practice outside the frameworks of identity and biology.

GUEST
Laura Harris is Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Art & Public Policy at New York University. She is the author of Experiments in Exile: C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness (Fordham University Press, 2019). She has also published in Social Text, Women & Performance, Criticism, The South Atlantic Quarterly and other journals.

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Interchange – At the Crossroads of Commons and Closure with Historian Peter Linebaugh

MUSIC
“Mas Que Nada” by Sergio Mendes – this is the Justin Strauss remix from the 1989 release Arara. “Mas Que Nada,” doesn’t really have a precise English translation…it might be thought of as a challenge to an assertion.

“Desafinado” by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd off of the 1962 release Jazz Samba. This crucial and groundbreaking work was the first full-fledged bossa nova album ever recorded by American jazz musicians.

“The Brand New Lucky Diamond Horseshoe Club” by David Rudder (Zero, 2000)…Born in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Rudder began singing with a calypso band at a young age, and in his teens sang backup vocals in a calypso tent run by Lord Kitchener, while earning his living as an accountant with the Trinidad Bus Company.

“Influenca do Jazz” – performed by Bola Sete. Born in Rio de Janeiro, guitarist Bola Sete’s name means “Seven Ball.” In snooker, the seven ball is the only black ball on the table.

“Tu Crees Que” composed by conga player Mongo Santamaria, off of the 1958 release Cal Tjader’s Latin Concert. Cal Tjader was an American Latin Jazz musician who primarily played the vibraphone. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to touring Swedish American vaudevillians.

ID Breaks: “Ginza Samba” (Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete)

CREDITS
Host & Producer: Doug Storm
Episode Producer: Cole Nelson
Editing and Mixing: Doug Storm
Executive Producer: Kade Young

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