Online creation
DREXCIYA - A CHRONOLOGICAL ANTHOLOGY OF DREXCIYA, PRESENTED BY THE DREXCIYA RESEARCH LAB
as part of Fourth Worlds
From 01 June to 30 November 2018
Drexciya’s chronological anthology, presented by the Drexciya research lab, is part of the “Fourth Worlds” project proposed by Stefanie Kiwi Menrath for the Jeu de Paume virtual space.
A chronological guide to a selection of Drexciya’s work created by Drexciya Research Lab.
« Imagine a team of African archaeologists from the future — some silicon, some carbon, some wet, some dry—excavating a site, a museum from their past: a museum whose ruined documents and leaking discs are identifiable as belonging to our present, the early twenty-first century » (Kodwo Eshun).
Drexciya is the name of the legendary Detroit electronic music duo formed by James Stinson (1969-2002) and Gerald Donald; in the subtext and cryptic messages on several of their concept albums they refer to a Black Atlantis called Drexciya sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. Drexciya was populated by the descendants of pregnant woman who were captured as slaves from African countries and thrown overboard during the crossing of the Atlantic, their unborn children adapting to breathe and live underwater.
The imaginary world of Drexciya forms a major element in the countermemory-movement of Afrofuturism, contesting the colonial archive – « situating the collective trauma of slavery as the founding moment of modernity » (Kodwo Eshun).
Drexciya
James Stinson (1969-2002) and Gerald Donald aka Heinrich Mueller, the two formerly anonymous producers behind Drexciya, have amassed a large discography since the early 90s. Both their music and mythology very much lives on, continuing to capture the ears and imaginations of new fans” (bleep). Since 2005, Drexciya Research Lab has been a central hub for all things Drexciya and related (Dopplereffekt, Arpanet etc), sharing news, archiving and research.