Sociologist Stuart Hall’s writing on the ways that meaning is encoded and decoded offers useful insight into the ways that cultural critics often inaccurately interpret work by contemporary artists of color. How have these cultural protocols for decoding Black avant-garde creative production failed? On the occasion of the publication of Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture, a book of essays on the ways Black digital media artists have pursued liberation since the 1960s, join artists in conversation with author Anaïs Duplan, artist Deanna Bowen, and VLC Fellow Rasheedah Phillips.

Supported by the Mary B. Saltonstall Lectureship Fund and the Helen Shapiro Lectureship Fund.