AEVN Highlight Reel
In October of 2022, members of the Astro Egalitarian Virtual Network (AEVN) met to brainstorm their idea of a virtual nation. This was an open-ended conversation, with the aim of designing a radical philosophical framework for future worlds.
AEVN: Design and Development Convening
Sessions 01-03 | Highlight Reel October 23, 2022
The Interval at The Long Now Foundation
San Francisco, CA
“The conversation today is a 'how’ conversation, and not a ‘why’ conversation,” began Ahmed Best, quoting Octavia Butler: “God is change…” The exuberant chatter quieted down, heads leaned in, notebook papers rustled. “...So how do you create a safe space, an egalitarian space, and a space for equality, where change can happen?”
Thus commenced the first convening of the Astro Egalitarian Virtual Network (AEVN), hosted on October 23, 2022 by Fathomers, the AfroRithm Futures Group, and the Interval, a San Francisco community hub and home to the Long Now Foundation. The gathering brought together over a dozen voices from fields as varied as the arts, sciences, economics, governance, and more to grapple with questions surrounding the possibilities and challenges of the virtual landscape.
The conversation moved fluidly between African and Indigenous histories and imagined futures as participants discussed what a liberatory, anti-racist, Afrofuturist virtual reality might look like, and what the priorities would be for its organization. As Dr. Lonny Brooks stated, “How do we heal individual and collective trauma? Through visions of the future.” To this end, AEVN looks to ancestral intelligence, marginalized voices, and the rediscovery of lost Black and Indigenous stories to help us imagine (and survive) a future of rapid social and ecological change, as well as a newly blended virtual/reality.
The Astro Egalitarian Virtual Network was co-founded by Ahmed Best, Dr. Lonny Brooks, and Jade Fabello. Best is an award-winning artist, educator, director, the host of the Afrofuturist podcast, and co-founder with Brooks of the AfroRithm Futures Group, among a multitude of other pursuits. He is also Senior Fellow at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, a professor of Film and Actor Entrepreneurship at USC School for the Dramatic Arts, and a visiting professor at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. Dr. Brooks is a leading scholar on Afrofuturism from the East Bay, a professor at California State University East Bay in Strategic Communication and Foresight and a visiting professor at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. Jade Fabello is an Austin-based freelance writer and the Operations Manager for the AfroRithm Futures Group.
Participants in the AEVN Design and Development Convening included Alexander Jones, May-Li Khoe, Nina Woodruff-Walker, Dr. Yewande Pearse, Dr. Sará King, Dr. David Kong, Jade Fabello, Ytasha Womack, Judith Okonkwo, Kwamou Eva Feukeu, Hodari Davis, Audrey Williams, Kate Morales, and Nyame Brown.