The World Wide Floyd Webb
Bryan Wilhite: Could you give us a quick bio’?
Floyd Webb: Born in Mississippi, raised in Illinois. Child of the Great Migration to the North in 1959 from the Mississippi Delta to the West Side of Chicago. Passenger on Spaceship Earth. Descendant of captives who pursued independent careers outside captivity. Came of age in housing projects. Achieved the velocity to escape the event horizon and downward spiral of the social gravity well… Shot straight out and beyond the accumulated material of a self-destructing middle class asteroid belt and found me some light and discovered it emanated where I came from…all I wanna do is let my lil’ light shine. You got a problem with that, put some sunglasses on.
rasx: Do you consider yourself a creative artist or a designer?
FW: Call me a “teknocreative.” Lately, I have not taken the time for self expression… The muse hits me always… The mind works as if possessed… The body and mind must be conditioned to know the signs and to act on them… The spirits always speak… I follow the muse sometimes, and kowtow to the acquisition of Pokémon™ cards and others. I have a nine year old… Children are the design job for yo’ azz. How do we help them maintain their true spirit, so they can see the world without the constraint of our blinders?
I am not answering the question. I have no formal training. I follow my heart… Fluid and natural, “denounce all material things gained by exploiting other human beings…” The creative and visionary should be unleashed in all of us… Merely the answering of this question fills me with the energy of infinite possibilities… Oh, shit. I think ‘m going nova.
I think of myself as less of a designer these days. I am meeting so many young fresh bright minds. I love new things. So I employ people like that to help me… I act more as an art director. I collaborate with some intense fine artists who have adapted their art to the technical.
Art is functional to me… I dropped the notion of “artist” long ago to focus on the personal need to create—to free my mind so my ass could follow. …To be more like Sun Ra than Basquiat. To burn long and bright. Renounce the world instead of embarrassing it… And therefore be free of it… The lessons of the living of Sun Ra and Basquiat are clear: both wrought with emotional landmines… Yes I could be from Saturn, space IS the place… In my space art/design is living. Creativity abounds. It is where I come from… In all I hear, all I see, we are all artist designers like it or not… I just chose to follow the muse…
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| the big, blue refrigerator |
rasx: How did you get into the world of web design?
FW: Necessity… tired… ready for the new… Waited to break the boundaries of the regional/national. Free of the brokers of exposure… Wanted to raise my own expressive crop and take it to market myself, set up my own stall and be global like a “natchal” man. I bought one 15 dollar book on html and have parleyed it into a living that ain’t bad… And I keep my freedom at the same time… Don’t have to work on Nellie’s farm no more… ‘cept during the digital harvest…
The transmission of video and audio materials really did it for me. When the web went graphic… I went with it… The possibilities were quite apparent to me. I am a sci-fi fan from way back and I have waited all my life for the future to come…
I pursued an evolving interest… I started in computers in high school. Worked on the IBM 1401 series, studied FORTRAN and COBOL (yuk)… Went on to work on the 360 series… the muse said, Git the hell out!… My eye was on visual expression… not the early manipulation of electrons and code nightmares…
The graphical interface of the Macintosh brought me back… I played with Charles Burnett’s machine back in 1984 on the balcony of his Slauson apartment [in Los Angeles, CA]… Time folded on me as I played with it… And here I sit today, yet again at 4:00 a.m., with a nine-year-old, sax-playing, computer-literate, Flash-game-playing, capoeira-learning, Pokémon/Dragonball Z/Lego Maniac asleep in the next space anxious to consume and utilize e-commerce for his own self fulfilling whimsy…
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| nkisi nkondi (from tamarin.com) |
rasx: Do you explicitly recognize any African aesthetics or sensibilities in your work?
FW: Definitely… Just like there is no ‘there’ there… There is little Africa there either [?]… The infinite possibilities… The ‘Net as a nail fetish, hammer in your promise, and make it happen or watch it rust… We lack a movement… The “digital divide” is about acquisition of venture capital, digital sharecropping of the worst sort… No trickle down either… Where is the liberated space? Where is our online Palmares? The kinté space is the freest I know of… But how do we balance the need to express with the necessity of getting paid to survive?
Africa is less a place for us in the west than a concept. I see it as organic and contradictory and beautiful/ugly, dry/wet, congested/open… A deep well of possibility and potential… Africa, the place, is another story… I have covered most of the space, I know, and I love/hate so much of it and in the end I love it cause it is mine… History moves as it will. We can manipulate it in benign ways with a word, a simple deed, one word, one image can change history change the world… I believe it… That is the magic of living.
I am not a ghost without a memory… My story resides in me… Africa beats in my heart—not in my idea of what I think it is… It is in my actions… It is my responsibility to define it and activate it.. To be like Mingus, Bird, Dolphy, ‘Trane and be all I can B (Basquiat)—in spite of historical circumstance… Africa is still where it’s at… The wisdom of the Dogon and the Komo is the light of the world… And it shines from inside… We just have to feel it…
Africa is a spiritual space… Got to get inside of it…
I am not romantic about Africa… I am quite pragmatic… In the spiritual world of the Kongo or the Dogon, the concept of art as necessity lives there—and it lives here! We look too far outside of ourselves sometimes… We are all we need to be… if we know us we can be us… whoever the hell you are…
rasx: Maybe this is youthful and naive, but I think that your mixture of art/sci-fi and science into a single world view is unique or at least uncommon. Do you?
FW: I don’t know… Maybe it is a matter of interpretation… You know that song… “keep your head to the sky”? How different is that from our grandparents, with their eyes on the sparrow… The point is developing a mindset to transcend… Transcendence… Rise above or away from pre-structured realities… and to do that we must be visionary… I lived in the projects and was confined to my hoe because of the hazards of the urban world… My mother taught me to read when I was four. By the time I was six I was well on the way… Fantasy and the fantastic is a child’s realm, but in all literature life is reflected… This is where we get our first lessons… We should never lose them… The notion of art is that there is always something to be created. The notion of sci-fi is that there is always something more, and a worldview that does not incorporate these two ideas is a poor one indeed…
rasx: What happens when I ask the same question above but add in Africaness and Blackness—do you find yourself even more unique? Do you find more Blacktronic peoples domestic or abroad?
FW: Yeah… there are… but we have not seen the tip of the iceberg emerge yet… I got my eyes on the development of digital art in Africa… I got high hopes because there is a unique worldview in an intense environment. What better crucible for the creation of art, the development of transcendent ideas? What stories will emerge from a landscape firmly subject to the whims of nature and the cruelty of man?… With the survival of intense cultural awareness?… I have been hearing stories about guys in Cameroon trying to do a feature animation one frame at a time on a slow azz computer with outdated software… and the community they live in thinks they are crazy… good!… That means he is working well and right… and—no!—I am not unique. I am just aware… It is easy for me to say, Yes, but who does it serve?… We are all unique… Those of us who throw off the blinders and look for more in the world… look to do more and create more… to change the world with that which we do…
rasx: Do you prefer to work alone or in collaboration?
FW: I love collaboration… Charlie Parker or Coltrane do not exist in isolation of their supporting musicians and they were good supporters themselves… Cross pollination… Symbiosis… Ideas evolve in collaboration… Creativity is a hot virus that seeks hosts and totally consumes, mutates and effects life… These conditions in society… like in Mumbo Jumbo, Ishmael Reed’s book… that virus, “Jus’ grew”… Creativity ultimately requires interactivity… Symbiosis, cross-pollination… Just a gumboin’ it all up…
rasx: What were some of your more “famous” collaborations?
FW: Of course working with Julie Dash… We have known each other for years. She has always had a unique worldview to me and is a person who is aware of the “other” technologies. My accomplishments are yet to be revealed… It has been a long period of learning for me… But now I have collected something very valuable over the years. First is the resource of great minds… To be able to call upon and consult with people I admire and respect is a good thing… My wood-shedding is almost at an end so I look to my collaborators for guidance… Julie and I have an idea of creating a liberated space for creative development, specifically focusing on new media… A digital Minton’s if you know what I mean… somewhere we can go in our off periods to debate and create, to test ideas in an environment of our peers and fellow obsessives…
I have recently worked with St. Clair Bourne on a project that Wesley Snipes is producing. I collaborated with a great 3D fine artist to recreate the ancient city of Karnak and other animation works for the documentary film. I have known St. Clair for a while and he is really a good role model for us all… He has been making compelling and relevant documentary films for years.
John Akomfrah, the Ghanaian British Director who did Last Angel of History… I did research for him on that film and it was about Black sci-fi in music, literature, etc… a very interesting concept… further development is needed in that area…
Cameroonian filmmaker, Jean Pierre Bekolo and I have been working together off and on. He was the first African Filmmaker I know of to use the web to promote his work. He was quick to adapt digital technologies into his work… “he got it” right away.
I may begin a collaboration with a Chinese filmmaker on a Tibetan Legend that will be a manga film of sorts. It is extremely challenging, the cultural differences really stand out and it will take a lot to synthesize the ideas. Especially since they are coming at it in a totally economic mode… to gain millions in the market place… a bad way to begin a project to me… Step one: what do we want to say… We must always start there but the Long March is still going… We shall see where it leads…
rasx: Ah, when I saw that you not only was an associate producer of Daughters of the Dust but you also shot the footage for the DVD documentary, I can see that St. Clair Bourne has influenced you. What advice does he give on how to approach documentary and how does it show up in the Daughters of the Dust DVD?
FW: The learning experience one receives from the likes of a St. Clair Bourne usually takes place in dialogue. In the discussion of the subject… the approach is perceived and observed. In my experience one seldom is “in class” but in the mix… when you jump into the mix you become part of the stew, pick up the various flavors. All you really got to do is place yourself in the vicinity of someone like St. Clair and you are gonna learn… that is if you are open to learning…
rasx: How did you handle those mosquitoes on the Sea Islands?!
FW: The mosquitoes? Man you mean how did they handle me… I was all jacked up by them li’l’ suckers… there are 10 different varieties of biting insects in South Carolina… and all of them leave their particular mark and it hurts … the horror, the horror…
rasx: I often say that the internal struggle of the African of today lies between the Greek concept of the individual and relating to a collective. These guys in Cameroon you talk about seem to be right on the cutting edge of this struggle. Since you precede me, what do you say and what have you seen?
FW: Well… When the collective stands in the way of progress out of collective ignorance… it is time for individuals to shake the collective up… the collective usually accedes when value is shown by practical application of the rebellious idea. Like if one of these young brothers has a major success, everybody comes running with support. That sounds familiar?
rasx: One memorable line in Daughters of the Dust is when Tommy Hicks’ character, Mr. Snead, describes one piece of turn of the century technology (a kaleidoscope) as “beauty, simplicity and science all rolled up into one small tube.” I could not help but think of how this 19th century character looks and sounds like Tony Brown talking about how computers will save the underprivileged children of the 21st century. There was a time when I felt very strongly that the computer would be the Black intellectual’s basketball court—finally there would be a concrete and impartial device to showcase mental talents—and the Internet would do even more. Now (even though I am still optimistic), I am not as excited as I once was. What are your thoughts and feelings about this?
FW: No one thing is a solution… It is a variety of phenomena that brings about change. Case in point: Computer centers open up in Black communities. They teach clerical skills… Word, Excel—all geared to serving others or “skills to git a job.” Programming is the key training that is needed: C++, Java, game designing, animating… This is where the play should begin… Tony Brown and these guys always seem to never have a clue about these things… it is a one-dimensional view.
I have a nine year old son … and he has been exposed to the computer since he was a newborn. He is a regular Internet surfer, looking for Pokémon, Gundam Wing and Lego.com info’. He plays the Flash games… He functions according to two screens: the computer and the TV screen… It is interesting to observe his interactions in this mode… but we have another dynamic going: I do it with him… I advise him what plug-ins he can load… we also spend a lot of time in Museums, art, natural history, science… and he gets physical culture—capoeira… raising children is an art few people master… The computer plays a part… but you need caring individuals to provide guidance and direction.
Computers have the capacity to teach… There are some amazing things we can do to help children using Macromedia Director, Authorware and JavaScript…
rasx: What you are saying gives words to my feelings: yes, today’s public schools are still based on preparing young people for 19th century factory jobs but all we may have to look forward to in any “radical education reform” are schools based on sitting in Dilbertesque cubicles. If just one young person from the so-called underclass stumbles across this interview and reads about a brother like you and gets inspired to be “crazy” then perhaps you show them a different way out. Besides being a parent and a de-facto role model (by mere existence) are you involved in any other youth “outreach” efforts?
FW: Now this is a great question… I attended an event this weekend in Chicago for an organization called MOBE. It is a marketing event for the “urban” (read, “that black/ghetto”) sector. The have events every six months to promote urban marketing in music etc. They have recently started a Technology Symposium. I met a kid who was 14 years old, designing his own web pages and was in the onsite cyber cafe playing Flash games. He has extensive computer training and was even paid to learn Cisco Networking (digital ditch digging/plumbing). He uses one of the community based computer centers. He wants to learn C++.
These centers do not offer any multimedia or advanced programming skills. I have offered my skills to several centers but never get called back. It is about lack of vision, perceived limitations and personal threat. These folks running these places are so personally ego-invested that they pass on their own limitations and lack of exposure to their students.
When I told the kid he could start learning C++ online he looked at me funny… I could see that no one ever told him this… I told him there are books to read and user groups he could join… I gave him as much information as I could… hoping some of it will stick, I hope that he is not tied to formal settings for learning. This is a major weakness in our community… That learning must be in some formal setting taught by some “expert.” We can be self taught, it is okay… I gotta be honest I barely graduated from high school and barely got a college degree. What I did get was an ass-kicking elementary school education with great teachers who encouraged me to learn at all times, to be open to learning. So no matter where I was—no matter what my grade-point average—I was in a learning mode for MY interest… learn and activate… activate and earn…
You know how we work Bryan, and you know the price we pay for what we do to learn this technology. We do just like Charlie Parker and Coltrane… We live our art/technology. It don’t matter how many hits we get or if we get awards for being the Black Online Grand PooBahs. The point is to do and effect. I get more out of visiting the kinté space than I ever imagine I will get… Sites like the kinté space are what we need to aspire to: pure expression. Effective communication. These kids need to be taken on a tour of the Internet, shown the sights by informed individuals who know more than CNN and MSN and UBO—and “urban entertainment.” They must be taught that real learning can occur in the twilight hours… That it is okay to sacrifice that night out to study Flash or to do that first app in C++ and that they can still get paid designing shareware AND make some moolah in the long term. We have no black digital movement right now… just more clowns performing for the economic circus. We are not building our potential, investing in our children… This is a major loss. It is all about getting me paid and raising our children to think this way… a pity.
rasx: When you stress getting into the “mix”—I want to ask you how did you get into the mix? Yes, one can be born under a good mother and father. Yes, one can have great powers of spirit and intellection. I can buy a ton of plane tickets and fly all over the world. But how did you meet all of those people? Were you simply in the right place(s) at the right time? Or do you have a “system”?
FW: The one thing I did was get involved at the start of the Contemporary Black Film Movement in 1979… it was the time of the LA Rebellion so named by Clyde Taylor (All you youngsters have to start a new wave today… we need some new blood). That period when Haile Gerima, Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, and others were at UCLA. That is where my history starts with the Black film movement. I entered informed and sorta focused on the history of this movement. System? I gotta be honest. I have no system. I follow my heart… I watch for signs… what signs? I’m an improviser… This is a hard question. But I knew what it was when I entered, I was very clear about the way forward because I understood the challenges, how do you get there… Read dammit! Study dammit! Find folks of like mind and debate this stuff…
(Funny thing is at the time I was like a lay expert in Japanese Chambara films, Samurai films… ate that shit up every month at Japanese Cinema at Francis Parker Auditorium in Chicago… It was my escape, into the martial world. The Hong Films were never like this: the lone wolf against the world, blind or woman—did not matter. Truth and justice balanced on the edge of blade… I still love it… The principles of bushido were fascinating to me in a metaphorical way, but the capoeira philosophy of “malicia,” I have learned, is just as intense and more akin to my experience as a NuAfrikan in the west.)
I saw this incredible film on PBS Foreign Film Festival when I was in high school. It was a French film titled Story of a Three-Day Pass, the (1968), a film by Melvin Van Peebles. I saw this one Friday night at 11:30 p.m. That film is my heart… to me it is his greatest work. At the time I thought he was Dutch or something… Had no idea until years later that he was Black. That made me aware of the possibilities… It all started with my involvement with Chicago Filmmaker, my childhood buddy and fellow activist Joh Hoffman was exec’ director of that organization. He challenged me to make a film. I made the film, Flesh, Metal, Wood, with horrible special effects. I got my film into a tour arranged by the St. Louis Art Museum… Met Warrington Hudlin there and his younger brother, Reginald. I attended a conference of Black Independent Filmmakers put together by the Black Filmmakers Foundation founded by Warrington. I was not a filmmaker yet. I was a still photographer. I offered my services and that is how I got invited. There is where I met everyone in what was a very significant event. Spike Lee was there as well as Julie Dash, Charles Lane, St. Clair Bourne and Ayoka Chenzira. I know all of these people but I am not close to but a few… It will always be this way in life. Real friends are as precious as jewels. And we usually agree on very little but the defined goal… This is important…
The odd thing is it was not always like this… There was a time when I knew no one, still don’t really… The people I gravitate to are people who have solid and defined political/spiritual positions. Money is not the determinant factor in what they do. There is passion and heart… Passion to say something. I am turned off by people who make money the prime goal… Money is a reward for work well done. The work is the point. If money is your goals there are easier ways to get it than in the arts. Banking, brokering, medicine, engineering. Most of what I know is self taught, and is a result of exposure to people who are better then I am at what I do. I apprentice myself to people, even now. All relationships are give and accept (not give and take)… What are you willing to give (not give up!). What are you willing to accept (not take)? I know my limitations, I know what I do and don’t like… and I have never liked the taste of azz… so I ain’t kissing none…
None of the people I am close to are what you could say are major successes in the scheme of Big Hype Amerika. It is a matter often of the mask you decide to wear, or greasepaint you decide to wear (blackface maybe). Does one have to be soulless to be what is considered successful? Is mediocrity the measure of African American success? Look around and you tell me.
I have never been too frightened to talk to people. at least not since I was 21. I am a stutterer. When I was a child I was a horrible stutter. That experience has left me with a great distrust of people and an intense desire to express myself.
These relationships have been developed over years. They have not been easy. It also helps that I don’t demand anything of people. What some of us don’t get is that ultimately, no one owes us anything. And we also forget that we owe the world everything. We have to work from inward out… Member that old song, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine”? I had to learn to walk with the light, the mystical light of Yeelen, the “flash of the spirit”… and I am patient. What more can I say?
Remember. I am old enough to have been born in a household with no television, listened to The Lone Ranger and The Shadow on the radio, watched Amos N Andy on TV and got pissed when the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Certain People) took it off the air… I did not see a film until I was probably six or seven (my mom took me to see Godzilla… a major role model to this day). I am a very introspective person. And a very literally verbose one as you can see here.
rasx: I was looking through www.itutu.com and noticed you were involved in projects for Oscar Micheaux and a children’s comic book. Both of these undertakings involved CD-ROM production. For the record, what are your thoughts and experiences surrounding the “demise” of CD-ROM “infotainment” and the rise of the web? Were you as optimistic as Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson about CD-ROM presentations?
FW: I still am optimistic… I just see it differently… You can use the CD-ROM to deliver large applications and information and also drive people to the web for supplemental information. I still think that the CD-ROM is a good delivery tool for infotainment. It allows one to not tie up so much bandwidth. And this is a key factor in the next five years.
rasx: When I think of information technology and digital technology, I think of that film Zan Boko, where the brother is working at his loom in his family’s compound. His products are taken from his home and to the market to be sold. I replace the loom with the computer and dream of no traffic jams, no big cities—it’s just my studio and family compound. What’s your ideal digital future?
FW: You nailed it right there Bryan. We are thinking on a similar level. That is what I have now… a fast connection and a telephone. I work home 70 percent of the time, get paid electronically and go to market with my wares now and then—and have more time to spend with my kid (though he does not think so).
The ideal digital future starts with exposing as many children to the potential and possibilities of programming and creative expression in the digital world. To create real access and training in these areas… In ten years we can see some serious changes if we just get three percent of our kids exposed and involved. Like I said, technology alone is not the answer, but a contribution to an answer.
But one thing I gotta say that is so important. Do not become chained to that monitor and keyboard… Stay physically active… I am suffering for it now… I have had to get into an intense physical training routine cause I started getting that desktop look: wide in the middle… The desktop is gonna be there… I make sure I get out these days and get in that gym, walk… stretch whatever… keep moving…
