Black Evanescence

Traces how the technological and material developments of visual culture - from the purported authentic and indexical properties of photography and cinema, to the "evanescence" of digital media - intersect with racial imagery and meaning making.

From the photographs of Frederick Douglas published with his memoir to the circulation of Twitter hashtags after the murders of Michael Brown and George Floyd, this book argues that African American cultural presence and racial meaning making can be traced along the still-developing arc of visuality. The earliest films of race were notable for their conviction about what the cinematic image and, eventually, the sound film could proffer: an “authentic” account of race and, specifically, Blackness on screen. Against those suasions Black Evanescence posits a vision of, and for, digital technology that sees its intersections with racial imagery very differently. This book argues that digital imagery possesses a salutary evanescence. Produced by a technology that does not purport to the indexical, digital media offers images that convey a greater openness or sense of possibility. A signal implication of this is that the racial imagery or meanings of digital media may be defined as part of a still-unfolding process, one that is part of a history that is transforming. Digital cinema includes a concrete link to its referent—in this context, the Black body. Digital modes allow a less “fixed” rendering of Blackness in the wider (white) understanding of race than we have historically seen or that a range of Hollywood works evince.