UNITY ORBITER ONE
WELCOME TO
AN AFRO-FUTURISTIC PASSION PROJECT
Unity Orbiter One
Afro retro-futuristic branding project, inspired by Bell Hooks and Derrick Bells literary and sociological frameworks using Midjourney as a catalyst for image generation.
Year: 2022
Role: Art Direction
Project Concentration: AI image generation, Art direction, branding, copywriting, art retouching
Description: This is a personal project. I wanted to test using Midjourney v4 to explore Afro-retrofuturistic themes and imagery. I practiced using best practices for AI image generation like, understanding their limitations, defining the workflow, experimenting with input variations, and constant itterations.
Welcome to Planet Bell
In the anthology, Afrolantica Legacies, Derrick Bell seeks to express the significance of African Americans within a global society, where they are seen as lesser people. He shows the impact of, if given a chance, African Americans working to leave in mass to an environment (an island dubbed Afrolantica) where the idea of freedom is actualized physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Bell Hooks's career focused on presenting the importance of an intersectional look into feminism. Specifically, she writes on the importance of Black feminism and how Black women face compounded misogynoir. This leads to how Black women’s position within a society acts as cultural markers for societal and localized community health.
Inspired by literary and sociological frameworks, I’m creating an imaginative creative project named Unity Orbiter One.
Unity Orbiter One - Ideation Board
This is a work in progress. Through the exploration of sociological Black thoughts and Afrofuturistic world-building, I seek to create fictional art that delves into:
What if the Black diaspora left Earth for a planet, just for US?
I want to explore two important questions in this Afrofuturistic quest. What does it look like to determine who is allowed to go on this journey and who stays? And once we get there, what systems have we developed to align an entire cross-cultural diaspora for all of the foreseeable future?
Virtual Reality devices are becoming more and more accessible due to the rise in the public’s interest and the development of new compatible software and hardware making devices cheaper to purchase. VRs ability to seamlessly render vast spaces makes it the perfect medium to show off the fictional environment of Planet Bell.
