Post African Futures, an exhibition of new digital art and performance by artists from various African countries, opens at Joburg’s Goodman Gallery on Thursday.
Tegan Bristow was invited to curate the exhibition around her cohesive research into technology-based art in Africa.
“I believe that the global view of technology in Africa is still a view with a very distinct bias – and that is a Western bias,” she says while explaining her point of departure.
She is an interactive media artist and head of the Interactive Media stream of the Digital Arts Division of the Wits School Of Art.
This is an exhibition that could introduce you to digital art specifically in Africa with emphasis on South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.
And even here, notes Bistrow, the differences are marked: “What we don’t think about enough is how African… culture is affected and affecting technology.”
That’s what this exhibition aims to do. She urged invited artists to ask questions about globalised media and how Africa is represented in it.
“When I started my research,” she notes, “I was looking for any documentation on Africa, culture and technology.”
What she found was that technology is only looked at from a development and “innovation” perspective. And is usually driven by Google or IBM, but that no real consideration is paid to local systems of knowledge or that a particular culture of technology exists. To illustrate the point she focused on Kenya and South Africa: “Here technology is historically tied to apartheid and its aggressive systems of control.”
There is a growing youth culture plugged into digital technologies, but the industry doesn’t necessarily support any significant startup development.
Kenya, she says, is completely different because their communications technology grew significantly after the Moi restrictions fell away: “The opening of a country saw a simultaneous growth of mobile development and the return of people using mobile as a way to change people’s lives. Technology has come to augment a strong traditional system that focuses on social justice and social-cultural knowledge transfer.”
The two countries on the same continent play very differently in the digital field as also reflected in the rest of the continent. “These distinct histories and cultures of technology are rarely seen as part of the larger picture in African countries and that is what the exhibition hopes to address,” she argues.
It is all about challenging the status quo especially in regard to Africa and fighting against a cultural predominance from the West in particular.
The title Post African Futures also questions notions starting with Afro-Futurism as a title of any African work that addresses technology or science-fiction matters. The exhibition is an exploration of multiple African cultures of technology. Post African Futures further explores the notion of “futures and innovation” as failures, as it bypasses current issues and current social and cultural transformation.
LINEUP
An exciting and explanatory series of talk, screenings and performances at the Goodman Gallery:
Thursday at 6.30pm: The Disrupter X Project: Notes from the Ancients by Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, featuring Dion Monti and Lisa Jaffe (SA); Anamnesis initiatory vision by Joël-Claude Meffre (FR) for artist Haythem Zakaria (FR/TN): Digital Africa and Narrative.
Saturday: 2pm to 2.45pm: Hallu-Ci, a short screening and talk by Brooklyn J Pakathi (SA); 3pm to 4pm: Lagos 2060, feature screening and talk by Olamide Udo-Udoma of Lagos Imaginarium (NG); Post Futures, Kenya: tradition in the globalised digital.
Thursday, May 28, 6.30pm to 7pm: Kichwateli, short screening and Q&A with Muchiri Njenga (KE); 7pm to 7.30pm: Silicon Savannahs & Digital Landscapes, talk by Jepchumba (KE); 7.30 to 8.30pm, Pumzi, feature screening of Kenya sci-fi film by Wanuri Kahui (KE), Data Futures.
Saturday, June 6, 2pm to 3pm: Swaartnet, talk by NTU (SA); 3.15pm to 4pm: wwwGlobal.com, short screening of NTU artists’ works. Sound and African cultures of technology.
Thursday, June 18, 6.30pm to 7.15pm: Mr Gold, short screening and talk by The Brother Moves On and Just A Band (SA & KE); 8pm to 9pm: Future Sound of Mzanzi, feature screening of documentary film by Lebogang Rasethebe and Nthato Mokgata (SA)
Saturday, June 20 (closing performance): King Kong, in collaboration with Keleketla @ King Kong at 8pm, The Afterlife with Mr Gold, featuring The Brother Moves One (SA), Just A Band (KE) and OkMalumKoolKat (SA).