Did Sun Ra Fear Cryosleep?

Water dissolves. Sugar vanishes into brine. Clay disperses. Salt surrenders its structure to the slow work of liquid. Did Sun Ra Fear Cryosleep? captures these dissolution events through DIY hydrophones (piezo membranes pressed against the surface of things ending) and transforms them into granular clouds of synthesis, each texture a kind of speculative memory: what is preserved, what is lost, and who gets to decide.

Conceptual Framework

An investigation of the transpiration of Black bodies across space-time and its depiction, often involving water and fluid, within both historical fact (the Atlantic Slave Trade) and science-fiction/fantasy narratives. The work holds Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist refusal of death alongside the thermodynamic fact that nothing is ever truly gone, only changed state.

The persona of Sun Ra (jazz bandleader and musician) metaphorically and ritualistically hailed from Saturn (as seen in Space is the Place). So, on his journey to Earth, did he fear entering cryosleep?

Technical Approach

A speculative ritual and sonic sculpture: artifacts are submerged in water and their dissolution and motion sonified via DIY hydrophones, then mixed with NASA Data Sonifications.

Presentations

• Society for Neuroscience and Creativity, FringeArts, Philadelphia, June 2026
• Co-Creativity in Music, Sound, and AI symposium, Culver Center of the Arts, UC Riverside, June 2026