Practical component of the PhD by Practice - The Quest for a Black Film Language: archives, sound and Black aesthetics in the context of The Black Radical Tradition

The five edited pieces and the pitch deck for the feature documentary, "None but Ourselves", constitute the practical component of my PhD by Practice. The edited pieces are entitled: Teaser (None but Ourselves), Not a Pacifist, Récit, Echoes, and Monitor.These edited pieces apply the theory developed in my thesis, the abstract of which is included below.Like superheroes, Black people seem to have an origin story – the moment when they realized that they were Black.This points to the fact that Blackness is a construct. There is a gap between how we perceive, or know ourselves to be, and what society deems us to be, or to put it differently, how the world sees us.My research and practice for this PhD draw from the Black radical tradition, and its ongoing project for emancipation. This study and my film practice trace the genesis of the term “Black” to denote peoples of African origin, and interrogate its political, aesthetic and social consequences. My practice-based research explores and applies formal interventions in film, where memory, hidden histories and fragments of archives trouble the rigidity of the past and open up possibilities for the present and future.Five edited pieces and one pitch deck form the practical component of the thesis, and accompany the questions of what does a Black film language do? How can we see differently or what are the possibilities of new ways of seeing? And how can we move toward a Black Aesthetic? These are the points of analysis and research in the four subsequent chapters of this study.This PhD by practice endeavours to challenge the manner in which Blackness has been (mis)represented, and propose new ways of seeing and understanding the complexities of Black life.