Dariusz Brzostek

The paper’s main objective is to analyse the visions of an African future in the Polish Socialist Era science fiction. Speculative fiction played an important part in the cultural landscape of socialist Poland, being integral to the popular culture as well as to communist propaganda. The image of a communist future was a major motif in the early Socialist Era science fiction narratives and also the impressive political forecast of the final worldwide triumph of the Communist Party. These narratives also included some interesting examples of the African future and the African people in the futuristic communist world: the Black communist and astronaut, Hannibal Smith, as the main character of The Astronauts [Astronauci, 1951] by Stanisław Lem; the African astronauts in The Magellanic Cloud [Obłok Magellana, 1955] by Stanisław Lem and the story of the African slaves’ rebelion against the capitalists on the space station Celestia in the novel by Krzysztof Boruńand Andrzej Trepka The Lost Future [Zagubiona przyszłość, 1953]. Lem’s novels were also adapter into films: The Magellanic Cloud as The Voyage to the End of the Universe (Ikarie XB-1, 1963, directed by Jindřich Polák), The Astronauts as First Spaceship on Venus (Der schweigende Stern, 1960, directed by Kurt Maetzig) – in which the Nigerian actor, Julius Ongewe, appeared as a very first African astronaut in the history of cinema.

The aim of this work is to shed light on the cultural context of the contemporary practices in music production. The essay focuses on the use of the archival recordings (both: African-American free jazz heritage, and Polish Radio Experimental Studio tapes) in the process of the reinterpretation of basic cultural categories: „identity” (to rebuild „African-American identity” – Présence Americaine) and „modernity” (to reclaim „Polish modernity”). The field of my research are „Polish Radio Experimental Studio” albums produced by Polish label Bôłt Records, and series of free jazz albums produced by labels such as ESP-Disk, Nessa, NoBusiness Records and Transparency. The question is: are these practices a part of the interpretive research and/or a critical theory of the contemporary culture?

Review:

J. Donguy, Poezja eksperymentalna. Epoka cyfrowa (1953-2007), przeł. M. Madej, Gdańsk 2014

This paper focuses on the problem of the non-knowledge and paranoiac hermeneutics in the Internet. This is constructivist and Lacanian approach to interpreting this problem, because the interpretive communities construct knowledge and collaboratively create a small web culture with the words of final vocabulary with shared meanings. According to Umberto Eco’s theory of paranoiac interpretation and Jacques Lacan’s explanation of paranoia the result of the overinterpretation is perfect, coherent world founded on the hermetic knowledge (secret, unoffi cial or antiscience). The Internet interpretive communities prefer “to not know” (as Jacques Lacan said – ne rien vouloir savoir), refuse official, mainstream science and choose the antiscientific approach to the process of accumulating and sharing knowledge (conspiracy theories, witchcraft, alternative medicine) to explain the reality.