Crossroads of Time and Space

John Akomfrah transcends time and space in his groundbreaking documentary, "The Last Angel of History". Can the past and future communicate with each other? This is the main question explored through the eyes and ears of the Data Thief, who has come from the future, to the 20th century to gain knowledge of his present time. An explorer trying to better understand his present moment, with only short phrase "Mothership Connection" as his clue. 

This clue leads the Data Thief through multiple interviews with a variety of cultural critics, musicians, and science fiction writers, including George Clinton and Octavia Butler. While it is not clear that the Data Thief is actually interviewing these people, what is clear is that he is he is using his highly technological glasses to help sort through this data.

Does the Data Thief find his answer? Only by sacrificing his ability to return to his present time, I believe that he finds his answer. That it is possible to transcend time and space, and to disrupt and subvert existing power structures through music and technology. 

The intersection of music, technologies, and science fiction is a powerful tool to imagine alternative futures and realities, and has been especially important for black people throughout history. How together these can be used to empower individuals and as a way to imagine and assert their own agency and power in the face of oppression. 

It seems to me that the Data Thief found an answer he wasn't expecting, that through these technologies created in the 20th century, the constrains of the past and the future where no longer relevant.