The dying Black body in repeat mode: the Black ‘horrific’ on a loop

Abstract

What does it mean to watch a Black man dying in repeat mode? This paper deconstructs the notion of consuming Black death in a loop (or repeat mode) online and its redistribution in the virtual realm centring the Black body in this pornotropic assemblage. The spectacularisation of Black death and its juxtaposition as a banal encounter is examined against the history of slavery and White oppression. The enactment of Blackness as lacking form or ontology redrafts the virtual sphere in enacting a politics of refusal for reconstituting Blackness adduced through its fluidity. The virtual as an unstable and disembodied realm is re-read as a generative graveyard for reclaiming Black consciousness and Black humanism. In countering the ‘Black horrific’ the paper discerns digital platforms’ agentic and sensuous potential as a stage for performative insurgency to resurrect an affective Black body politic through the disembodied formlessness of the virtual sphere.