Author: Ghost Writer

Bubblegum Club is hosting DENY / DENIAL / DENIED, the culmination of Roberta Rich’ studio residency at Assemblage

Artist Roberta Rich has been in residence at Assemblage Studios since February 2016. Her time at Assemblage now culminates with an exhibition of new works and an artist discussion between herself and artist Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi.

Roberta Rich was born in Geelong, Australia 1988. Her work examines notions of authenticity with regards to concepts of identity. Rich draws from her autobiographical position as a primary source of research, exploring how her South African and Australian identity simultaneously ‘pass’, ’fails’ and ‘speaks’ within varying contexts. Particularly focusing on constructions of ‘race’ identity, Rich attempts to subvert racial stereotypes with ambiguity, satire and humour in her video, installation, performance and text projects. Her engagement with language is part of a sustained practice seeking to deconstruct the problematic representation(s) and language of ‘race’ that continues to inform identity construction. The work developed during her residency at Assemblage respond to instances of cross-examination encountered, South Africa’s history, the (personal) relationship the artist has with this history, what it means to be ‘Coloured’ and attachment(s) to such language, fetishism of African identity and the complexities within diasporic African identities, through the form of tapestry, silkscreen prints, photography and text.

DENY / DENIAL / DENIED opens on Thursday 12th May at 6pm and will close with the artist discussion on Sunday 15th May, 2pm at Bubblegum Club.

10 May 2016
Watch: Fear of The Youth Episode 2 – Didi Monsta

Fear of The Youth is a new web series about the interests and concerns of Johannesburg youth. The series is produced by Germ Heals a collective of filmmakers, fashion designers and photographers. In episode 2 Germ Heals catch up with the young fashion designer Didi Monsta to discuss his personal style as well as the release of his Half Empty collection.

8 May 2016
The subversive love of Nolan Oswald Dennis’ Furthermore

Nolan Oswald Dennis’ current exhibition, titled Furthermore, at the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town resists (neo)colonial logics of closure and destabilises the necrological dimensions of neo-imperial violence that continue to suffocate the vitality of life within the “always collapsing social fiction” of a ‘new’ South Africa. Instead of circumscribing what constitutes ‘reality’ through the exclusions of reductive tendencies, Furthermore seeks to open up a wide field of engagement where points of tension are explored through an acknowledgement of multiple epistemologies and perspectives.

The title of the show is an indication of these complexities in its significance as both a stereotypical trope of political jargon and as a word that continually expands the centre to bring into orbit the significance of that which is constructed as peripheral. What does it mean to notice the complexity of gestures involved in the recent removal of the statue of Rhodes, where it wasn’t simply unceremoniously toppled in a realisation of necessary decolonial vengeance but was carefully hoisted by the arm of a crane, holding preservation together with removal? What could these movements signify if seen in relation to the archaeological violence of the removal of other statues over a hundred years ago, which facilitated the incorporation and appropriation of the Zimbabwean Birds into Rhodes’ personal mythology, and moved toward stasis where the best ‘specimen’ remains in The Groote Schuur Manor House, the current home of South Africa’s president? How do bodies contain the traces of technologies of violence enacted in the bizarre melting-down of artefacts through the Ancient Ruins Company?

Another Country I to VI (image courtesy of Goodman Gallery)

Furthermore points to ways in which both the presence and the absence of memory can indicate how it is institutionalised or ideologically incorporated into (and appropriated for) nationalist conceptions and (neo)colonial forms of domination which seek to invalidate alternative imaginings and thus, the creation of alternative forms of life. The implications of memory are expanded through considerations of complicacy which circumvent particular ascriptions of identity and subjectivity and breathe against unequivocal integration into hegemonic forms of political sovereignty. In all of these foldings, Furthermore illuminates the ways in which acts always contains their own dissidence and seems to suggest that it is this difficulty that can actually enable engagement and understanding.

Dennis’ work carries the feeling of a contemporary articulation of Aimé Césaire’s resignation letter to Maurice Thorez, where Césaire stated that; “I am not burying myself in a narrow particularism… But neither do I want to lose myself in an emaciated universalism… My conception of the universal is… enriched by all that is particular” and that “it is life itself that decides.” In a vital embrace of becoming, Furthermore exhibits a transformative form of politics concerned with altering ontology, with irrupting integration into the bankruptcy of artificially discrete ideas.

The work of Dennis exploits inherent tensions in order to turn a system back on itself. The scent of this is carried in the way that Furthermore manipulates the aesthetic markers of the official and mimics the austere and processional tone of that which is sanctioned. The box is a central concern in the way that is can simultaneously obfuscate and draw attention-to. What constitutes a blanket-statement and how does this relate to a texture touching skin? History is captured in the impermanence of wax. There is a kind of urgent short-circuiting of algorithmic meaning played out in the patient intricacy of networks of lines. The aggressive pontification of the linearity of time is suspended through the co-presence of rocks and screens, unattributed texts from indiscernibly ‘different’ times which resonate together. There is a sense of the way in which graves are sometimes marked by deliberately damaged pots; of how new meanings can emerge and circulate.

Dark Places I & II (image courtesy of Goodman Gallery)

When I spoke to Dennis about Furthermore, he spoke about the symbolism involved in how gallery spaces attempt to present neutrality through a deliberate lack of self-memory, an active evisceration of all signs of what has come before; how the ‘art world’ is a huge industrial machine for moving money across borders and the ways in which everything else just functions to validate this; how an awareness of these limitations saw a manoeuvring of format for growth and explorations which can then perhaps enable other kinds of engagement; how the work can never be about the completed objects which are really just the excess of the work of trying to understand; how even intimate autobiographical aspects get captured and claimed, constantly repeated under the reductive and paradoxically distancing guise of ‘engagement’. All of these threads that weave together, all of the attendant things; the continuities in spite of the projected fragmentations.

Furthermore demands a new language and speaks to ways in which South Africans are no longer satisfied with the placating illusions of freedom, suspended in a series of active irresolutions. It reflects a radical praxis and offers an example of how some of the most thorough decolonial work is happening beyond the codified landscapes of engagement. Furthermore is part of a subversive love that will see South Africa invented anew and that risks singing madly with Sankara that we must dare to invent the future,

Furthermore…

28 April 2016
Alma Martha, she’s not your mother; the unibrow to highbrow art practice

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha is the unibrow to highbrow art practice, rebelling against predefined forms of practice and codified systems of meaning-making through an often playfully provocative approach to moving alongside established institutions. Born towards the end of 2014 and sustained through the collaboration of artists Juliana Irene Smith and Molly Steven, Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha seems uninterested in replacing one kind of haughtiness with another and so openly acknowledges the necessity for commercialised arts practice while responding to some of the experimental limitations of official gallery spaces by opening-up alternative forms of engagement. Through Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha, artists are provided with a system of support for working through the potential value of being-in-process and for teasing out tentative responses to some of the more sticky questions skulking around what actually constitutes ‘artistic production’.

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha doesn’t shy away from the awkward or the uncomfortable but seems to view these moments of tension as necessary and generative animations against stagnation. Unlike formal or educational institutions, this is not a space that necessarily rewards those who speak the loudest and for the longest, it is just as interested in failure as a generative process as it may be in ‘success’. What happens in your body when you’re blushing? What does that respond to? Maybe that says more than artificial bravado so, Darling, bring your shaky voice to what was the silence of this space. Their byline states that “She is not your mother”; you aren’t going to be haunted into a corner through threats of hairy palms, so you can get as unrighteous and juicy as you like.

This isn’t about the labour of producing neatly formed human beings with neatly defined and expressible concerns; this is a romantic, playful platform for the bastards of a system that often cannot properly love or regard its children. This inclusive, experimental attitude is expressed in the description for one of Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha’s previous events, Ridder Thirst and Other Readings One Should Ignore; “the imbibed monologue, the that’s-what-she-said preclusion, the soutie sonnet, the Lutheran sermon, the bonanza-SMS, the homeboy homily, the retrieved-from-trash coming-out letter, the reluctant manifesto, the floating quote, the .PDF reading group, the eunuch operetta, the proxy press conference, the refused award acceptance speech, the amen-men-amendment, the track-changes bar in Word, the golly guidebook, etc.”

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha embodies the principle of learning-while-doing and this has seen the collective thrown into some contentious waters within its first year of existence, making both ArtThrob’s best and worst listings for shows held in 2015. But what could be more vital than a collaborative where the creators are as open to critique and active learning as the artists it embraces? If anything, this is an indication of a radical space and network that is more interested in creating opportunities and pushing cultural production forward than it is in anxiously micromanaging a pitch-perfect brand.

Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha have just concluded the public art event A Lot, which featured the work of Jaco Minnaar, Bonolo Kavula, Katharine Meeding, and Lonwabo Kilani in an abandoned lot in Cape Town. As the description for the event stated, “We are not seeking to dull edges, to be a clean-up crew or make places accessible, even though we do seek to access you as an audience.” These concerns regarding questions of access, of space, of audience, and of interactions between the public and the private will continue to be explored throughout 2016, through various site-specific manifestations as Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha reflexively play with their own practice in response to a recent abandonment of their physical space after numerous break-ins. Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha are currently engaging with SUPERMARKET, an international artist-run art fair in Stockholm, Sweden, where they are featuring the work of Jamal Nxedlana and Chloe Hugo-Hamman. The SUPERMARKET show will also be displaying Wearable Art created by friends of the Collective including; Anthea Moys, Herman de Klerk, Black Koki, Liza Grobler, Chris van Eeden, Miranda Moss, Critical Mis and Buhlebezwe Siwani.

I can’t get some of the images from Conjugal Visit out of my head. Through an engaged but un-curated approach, the tone of Alma ~~Mater~~ Martha has a propensity to shift without warning, and you’ll want to check it out because “How long could your relationship last without a kiss?” You can see more of their work on Tumblr or on Facebook.

20 April 2016
The Stevenson’s Instagram takeovers; Social media as a tool to subvert traditional art neuroses

The Stevenson gallery, a contemporary art space in Johannesburg and Cape Town, focusing on both national and international artists, is once again pushing the boundaries of the exhibition format beyond the confines and limitations of the white cube. The first exhibition series within this vein was Ramp at the Gallery in Cape Town, where the old loading-dock ramp of the front entrance (the space had previously been a factory) was utilised by young artists to create site-specific installations. Ramp acted as both a literal and figurative transition space between the gallery and the street outside and saw an interesting and diverse body of work emerge from Nyakallo Maleke, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Mitchell Gilbert Messina and Lady Skollie.

The Instagram takeover series extends this spatial interrogation to the digital realm in a way that starts to unravel some of the gatekeeping distinctions between what constitutes ‘gallery-worthy’ art and what doesn’t. Not only does the Instagram format start to consider everyday social media articulations as potentially valuable artistic expressions, but it also raises questions around dissemination and access to art works, particularly important considering South Africa’s current socio-political landscape, where galleries could often be experienced as intimidating and inaccessible spaces.

A purely instrumental and commodifying logic is also undermined through the use of a format where the ‘art objects’ themselves can easily disperse, circulate and cross-pollinate. The rich body of work that has thus far emerged from the series speaks to the value of loosening some of the constraints and pressures of the traditional exhibition space where reputations and ‘cohesive’ physical bodies of work often need to be firmly established in advance of any opportunities. Importantly, the series sees the artists having direct access to the Stevenson’s account, uploading their content in a completely unmediated way- a turn that subverts some of the neuroses around artistic production where content is often heavily filtered through the eye of a predefined and often institutionally trained ‘expert’.

The series began with Fela Gucci’s evocative and intimately personal Tsohle, which is described in the statement as reflecting the diverse influential elements of a complex identity and artistic practice, with Tsohle “being a gospel song that signifies the hope of everything coming together.” The work that emerged from this takeover interrogates the complexities of black queer identity through a body-politics that radically reimagines the possibilities for expressions of honesty and truth, and articulates fluidity as a sacred digital force. This takeover has, in part, opened up room for the inclusion of FAKA (comprised of Fela Gucci and Desire Marea) in the Stevenson’s upcoming group exhibition titled SEX (curated by Lerato Bereng), highlighting the potentialities that are being created for interactions and dialogues between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ exhibition spaces.

The second body of work to emerge from the takeovers was Tiger Maremela’s F5 (alt.ZA) + other imaginings described by Maremela’s statement as including three murals, “which might provide answers as to what might lie at the end of the rainbow, F5 (alt. ZA) attempts to ‘refresh’ South Africa and provides alternatives to white supremacist capitalist heteronormative imperialist patriarchy in the context of South Africa… Alternatives to hypermasculine and heteronormative masculinity and racist beauty standards are provided.”

The third artist to have instigated a takeover is Jody Brand, aka Chomma, who’s Drying Tears relates to a politics of sisterhood and radical self-care. Brand states; “We realise the capabilities of our human potential amidst powers which denigrate our existence. We are femme, pro-black, pro-queer and pro-hoe. This work stands in opposition to forces that attempt to silence us and relegate us unworthy”.

Speaking to the Stevenson’s Stefanie Jason, she stated that something exciting about the series was the democratic way in which artists are selected for participation, as well as the way in which the Stevenson remains open for individuals to self-propose takeover residencies, potentially radically opening up space for innovative engagements which subvert some of the traditional restrictions of art practice in South Africa. Keep an eye on the Stevenson’s website for future Instagram takeovers, with the next participant being art-book designer and graphic artist, Gabrielle Guy.

12 April 2016
Bubblegum Club Vol 5 by Seferino

Seferino serves up a delicious musical cocktail and gives us a taste of his down-tempo sophistication in an exclusively curated, eclectic audio journey for Bubblegum Club. The mix manages to traverse genres as diverse as Reggae, Japanese Progressive Pop-Rock, Ugandan Court Music, Indian Filmi Music, and Nigerian Afrobeat in a really laidback yet surprising way. There are also Senegalese, Brazillian, and Serbian vibes stirred in for good measure. There’s something cheeky about the way it lulls you into a mode of easy listening but then throws-in from off-centre to snap back your attention. Somehow it all makes sense, moving from a chilled intro, and then building to a climatic ballad, before easing out again.

Seferino is a Cape Town based musician, producer and songwriter who has played guitar and keyboard for John Wizards for roughly six years but who has also clearly established his solo project through the release of the bright, melodic, electronic-pop EP, Monkey With No Tail! on Ryan Hemsworth’s Secret Songs. From within this solo evolution, Seferino has been able to take on all aspects of the craft and production, including creating the art work and directing the music video for Party Monster. He’s off to America to play solo live gigs in Connecticut and Syracuse and will be releasing his song-writing-focused, full length album (where the possibilities for live recordings within electronic music will be cleverly explored) later on this year.

Enjoy!

11 April 2016
Battle of the CBDemons; The spiritual-synaesthetic-sound and Afro-anime-tinge of a revolutionary new club culture

Fuck your false sense of reverence as you snort and swallow for sensation, lapping up the glitter of smashed glass in sweaty rooms. Different artillery is required for these cities where hate can be placed on a heart through the harsh angles of the grind through grimey streets. In a summoning by the Open Time Coven, and as a unit of the tribe Angelboyz Choir (comprised of Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Angel-Ho, Fela Gucci and Desire Marea of FAKA, and Neo Mahlasela of Hlasko) artists Angel-Ho (of NON Worldwide Collective) and Bogosi Sekhukhuni have joined forces to create Battle of the CBDemons, a sonic narrative that churns the metaphysical in an archetypal battle to purge the hostile and desperate infestations of life in the CBD.

The Battle of the CBDemons discharges cloud-ground lightening to reassemble ancient mythologies with modern technologies, cleansing the way that meaning is crunched between foreign teeth. It bleeds a shield for shallow love, staking a space to reassemble all the parts of self that have been so thoughtlessly dispossessed. It is a synthetic Lebombo Bone burning clean, a fever-dream to blaze through the night at accelerating speed, the 3D printing of a sacred chant. Sounds and samples are manipulated on the edge of a sword, refracting light to a frantic phantasmagoria where the avatars gleam in dirty constellations. There is something of the complicated African orchestral filtered through pixelated pop culture to create a new sonic cosmology, a new technology of healing. Not only does the mix cleanse and create anew the makers, but it also acts as a physically affecting interface for the listener; vibrating Kemetic force to strengthen their engagements with the world.

Battle of the CBDemons is an answering-back to the vampiric energies of stagnant representations; it kicks Tay AI in the shins and looks the Sakawa Boys straight in the face. It’s a digital, crystalline, plastiglomerate rooted in a genetically-evolved contemporary Africa. This is redefinition of club culture. Listen through. Don’t be embarrassed of the things it touches. This is the love-child of a communion of future sounds.

6 April 2016
The almost impossible self-combustion of Andrew Aitchison’s ‘Containing Space’

A chair ignites and something seeps in from beyond the border- it’s all unsettled. A sudden awareness of the force of the floor when it flat-catches your foot reaching for a stair that isn’t there. In preparation for this article, I was sent a video documenting Andrew Aitchison’s ‘Containing Space’, a body of work produced while he was studying at a prominent art institution in Cape Town. In the back of the video, from some strange place, a voice certainly pitches; “You’ll notice how shitty the standard is… like… ya.” And I couldn’t get rid of this… had to replay it over and over. Because although it wasn’t a part of the actual exhibition or didn’t specifically relate to Aitchison’s work (as only one of the graduates presenting), there’s something there that speaks to his deliberately unfinished interrogation, to the beauty of an ugly accident, to the ungraceful arm-in-arm of making and unmaking, of success and failure; the rough and unsubmissive sketch of it all. What does it mean to occupy the space of the ‘artist’, to have the privilege of some kind of investment in, and access to, this title, even before the production begins and then to go through that process, the physical labour of it, only to have that all reduced to an object whose viability is ‘authoritatively’ designated by fleeting glances that fail to see the splinters in your hands?

Aitchison’s exhibition persistently questions the subtleties of structures of power. How does a home come to be such a thing? Can the violence of settling somehow be traced in the way that a person reclines? The way bricks can be read as a single smooth surface? Aitchison’s work forces an immediate encounter with all the ambiguities of the construction site, both internal and external to the educational institution; the precarity of scaffolding, the vulnerabilities of guarding, the designation of value through particular projections necessitated only through a blind-eye to what’s already there, the ways in which creating one structures breaks others apart, the way the unfinished is often marked-off by screens intending to exclude it from sight… the ugly, awkward creature of it all. Aitchison deliberately leaves these gut-wires exposed, frays the polish of the object by calling attention to the abrasive act involved.

‘Containing Space’ is a product of its contemporary context in its refusal to avoid that which can’t be neatly resolved. What does it mean to be producing from a particular kind of machine, at a particular time, and in a particular context where the redundancy of the ‘post-racial’ hits you square-in-the-face? How can the pressure to define a specific identity be navigated when properly acknowledging your own positionality demands multiple degrees of effacement? Is there a way to speak without actually occupying the space you are required to surrender? Aitchison’s work grapples with some of these complexities, unfixing an authoritative stance through the use of multiple materials and mediums that muddy the exhibition format and bring into account the rich textures of worlds that already far exceed the stuffiness of the established. You can’t master the things that are there, tell exactly where they should start and where they should end, disconnect the eye they engage when walking back into the streets, take them home with the open-click of a wallet.

In its strange uses of scale, its appropriations and its repurposings, even in its title; ‘Containing Space’ plays authenticity as a kind of running joke- it radically gambles with its own success and bears witness to ways in which structure can both starve and feed itself. There is something unsettling in Aitchison’s refusal to simply inherit that which has been given, and it is this quality that is perhaps the most exciting- a sense that his commitment to the labour of production will continue to be played out in both formal and informal settings; that the grain of the work will continue to be its own exoneration, undeterred by the dull force of designations or the stagnant borders of cultural inaugurations. The collection flares with a powerful question; how can we survive this if we aren’t sincerely willing to risk our own, almost impossible, self-combustion?

28 March 2016
The erotic illustrations designed to get us talking about good sex

The erotic is a phenomenon that has purposefully been made hidden. With the imposition of Christianity and Roman-Dutch law during colonialization came the strict distinction between the public and private lives, where the latter would be strictly define and restrict understandings of sexuality at the time. With the introduction of a constitution, rights would now be given to previously disadvantaged groups such as woman, homosexual and transsexual identities that would no longer be marginalized in the public sphere but also acknowledged as being legitimate sexual beings. Yet such achievements would be heavily dampened and the expression of sexuality becoming a risk would find itself further at risk with the rise of HIV/AIDs and other sexually transmitted infections. These infections would further push conservatism in the fight against HIV as abstinence would be taught and the virus incorrectly associated with being black or gay.

A different tactic would be used in the struggle against HIV/AIDs with the focus on prevention. Youth and other vulnerable groups would be pushed to protect themselves and the phrase “condomise” would be the go to word when it comes to talking about sex. The major tactic in this struggle would be the need to talk about the virus but most importantly the need to talk about sex. Parents would be encouraged to talk to their children about sex, wives talk about sex with their husbands and the same sex relations would no longer be something to kept private and had to be talked about openly.

Though much has been gained in the fight we are still dealing with high rates of infection and a stigma to victims and discrimination against LGBTQI persons still persists. A new phase in the struggle is emerging, one which no longer just talks about safe sex practice but one in the discourse of sex positivity. Sexuality would need to be talked about, not just as something to be protected but also enjoyed!

Such movements are taking place within South African shores with the creation of the YouTube Series “Woman on Sex” that features interviews of woman and their experiences with sex. With discussions ranging from faking an orgasm to looking at understandings of virginity, this series tackles female sexuality head on. Even with the release of the successful local film “Happiness is a four letter word” which tackles 3 women each within a distinct relationship, from being engaged, having an affair and moving from stranger to stranger. Here the women are seen in charge of their sexuality, actively seeking their pleasures in an attempt at happiness.

It is this charge that finds itself at play in the illustrations of Motlatsi Khosi, a Philosophy lecturer from the University of South Africa. Though her art education ceased at Matric, she continued her love of the arts through her playful Erotic illustrations. Through her work she wanted to tackle issues of gender and sexuality outside of the written and academic sphere. Through her work she wanted to challenge the seriousness and fear surrounding sex and youth through teasing and eye catching visual representations.

If we are to take sex seriously then we need to closely examine the things that tackle head on the things that tickle our fancy. Her work presents us with bright, high contrasting colours that immediately catch the eye. By tricking the eye at first glance the colours seem to suggest that these are meant for the consumption of children. Then the mind is forced to take hold as suggestive imagery takes the minds to more carnal places. The artist aims to return the innocence back to the domain of the sexual.

A common theme in her works is that of the drip. Female sexuality is encapsulated for the artist in the liquid form. When a woman is aroused her body lactates with desire. Her mouth waters, her skin perspires, her vagina trickles in delight. It is through this image water that male and female pleasure are no longer seen as direct opposite of giver and receiver. It is through this elemental form where a man’s enjoyment is represented through the culmination of ejaculate, that male and female are equal in the representation of their delight. There is no dominant or submissive only equals in the consumption of pleasure.

The works use the subtle suggestive metaphors such as big thick lips floating within a sea of playful sperm or the subtle silhouettes of inner lips with a single happy tear making its great escape, it is up to the viewer to decide how deep their willing to let their mind go.

This work seeks to get a blush from its viewer but also pull from the deep recesses of the conservative mind what it is they find desirable about the act of sex. It also seeks to start the conversations on how we seek to represent sexuality particularity as a means of empowerment. Sexuality can no longer be seen as perverse or something to be hidden, as violence against the most vulnerable such as woman children and LGBTI is further amplified through acts of silence. Such is exemplified by the 1 in 9 protest entitled “Sexual violence = silence” that sought to create a safe space for woman to speak up and share their trauma, their bodies no longer a site of shame but defiance.

We need to also break the silence surrounding sexuality so that the discussion can be had over what it means to be agents in control of our sexuality. It is through the realm of the erotic that we can begin such discussion because knowing what it is we desire is very much apart of the South African condition, defining who we are and how we want it.

19 March 2016
Bubblegum Club mix vol 4 by Uncle Party Time

SA Hip Hop is experiencing an unprecedented moment of success, the genre has reached a new level of popularity in the country especially amongst young South Africans. Junior Mabunda aka Uncle Party Time is doing his bit to drive the sound through his SA-Hip-Hop-banger-filled dj sets at parties like ONYX, Every Other Thursday and Bohemian Grove.

We spoke to Uncle Party time about SA Hip Hop, the ONYX parties and the exclusive mix he cooked up for us.

Can you tell us a little bit about the mix you created for us?

The mix has a lot of hits that I feel people will appreciate, so It starts off with the King of SA Hip Hop (AKA) and ends off with the current prince, Emtee.

What type of music do you normally play?

I usually play a lot of trap music because I try to always play for the crowd and trap is one of the things people want to hear.

Why do you think SA hip hop has blown up in the last 2 years?

It’s doing so well because of all the producers that have sleepless night doing their thing in the studio, but then again all these rappers have been trying to chase the number one spot so that kind of made competition pretty tough as well.

You are a member of the crew that organised ONYX, can you tell us how ONYX was born and how you guys started throwing parties?

ONYX was originally founded by 3 people which is myself, RĀMS and Gondo (Alternative Visuals). One of our friends was selling weed at the time and we started thinking of ways to make our own money because we were tired of being dependent to our parents, we got a team of dope guys and we all worked hard to get everything right.

You have played for slightly older audiences at parties like USB Soundsysyem but also really young ones too at parties like ONYX. Are there any noticeable or stark differences between the two audiences? Whether its the music they like, or the way that they dress or the way they behave at parties?

Playing for a younger crowd like ONYX kids is way easier because I can play some stuff they’ve never heard and they would still rage, but with the older crowd it’s not that simple because I have to play the stuff they want to hear, stuff they listen to on radio or see on music channels to keep them with me.

You’ve also started producing now, do you have any plans to release tracks this year?

I’m working on a young EP that I want to drop when I feel like I’m ready to handle the pressure. lol

I know dj ing isnt your only expression, what else do you do?

I also work as a photographer.

Whats next for uncle party time ?

Uncle Party Time wants to play in Europe one day.

17 March 2016
Giving Content to Decolonisation; The Trans Collective in South Africa

“Our bodies are political.

Our pain is systematical.

We represent the bastards.

We stand for the nothings.

We shout for the unheard.

We occupy space for the excluded.

We demand representation for the invisible.

We speak with people like us.”

The Trans Collective is a radical black decolonial student movement with close affiliations to and personnel overlaps with the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) movement at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. This article extrapolates from a conversation with the Trans Collective, as well as from resources and statements made available on their Facebook page. The conversation was initiated in response to the Trans Collective’s recent intervention at the opening of the exhibition: Echoing Voices from Within, commemorating the first anniversary of the formation of the RMF movement. The Trans Collective has stated in no uncertain terms; “Our intervention is an act of black love. It is a commitment towards making RMF the fallist space of our dreams.” In other words, the intervention, as well as the struggles that led to it, are not to be appropriated as somehow symbolic of the flaws of the decolonial struggle by those who desire the continuation of entrenched, racist structures of power. That the decolonial struggle is being contested from within is a testament to its rigour and vitality. As the Trans Collective state; “Decoloniality is not a metaphor”- it is experiential practice that simply cannot be decided in advance.

The Trans Collective reflect this radical decolonial praxis in their refusal to capture and commodify, in their refusal to assert ultimate signifiers and meanings. There is a kind of intimate knowledge there, a knowing of the damage that can be done by a single word, a single pronoun, a name. For the Trans Collective, solidarity cannot be centralised around a single rallying point because that could never do justice to the complexity and multiplicity of experiences of oppression under white supremacist colonialism. Rather, solidarity is to be found in a kind of radical empathy, an understanding of intersectionality that implies that this pain is political, but other pain, unknown pain, is valid and political too. The more a person or movement claims to have all the answers the more answers are maimed in the process and thus, the Trans Collective reject an egoist, assertive politics, and embrace, instead, a radically militant, yet uncertain politics where the scope of consideration is opened up rather than narrowed down. They understand that a truly decolonial project cannot simply pick and choose the aspects that suit it best. They understand that the aspects that sit most comfortably are probably the ones most desperately in need of unsettling, because sitting comfortably has no place in dethroning. And they are positioned to know this, to see the insidious workings of systemic power and oppression when their daily lives, the most basic of tasks- such as using a toilet, or being addressed, or having to fill out a form, or produce a student card, or occupy space in a residence- coalesce in a series of violent microaggressions that would see them suffocate with every breath taken.

The Trans collective puts forward the idea that Decolonisation must be built on a reclamation of humanity and this cannot occur when what is most valid and necessary and human is still being demarcated, commodified, and decided in advance. White supremacy has always employed, and continues to employ, overt, as well as subtle and pervasive, technologies of physical and metaphysical power. Its processes of mapping, naming, containing, and classifiying, symbolically and physically disfigure, dismember, and dehumanise. The Trans Collective are acutely aware of these intersections when they position confronting toxic gender constructs as an indispensable part of the decolonisation project. Hierarchical processes of visibilising and invisibilising need to be met by similarly thorough refigurings and rememberings and the Trans Collective seem to call for this comprehensive reorganisation, for a passionate disordering that completely subverts and exorcises the exploitative logics of alienation and dispossession.

To labour the point against the materiality of resistance to change; if the oppressions suffered under a white supremacist, imperialist, ableist, capitalist cisheteropatriarchy are systemic, they are inherently multi-faceted and no single aspect can be hierarchically prioritised above the rest; to do so would be to employ the very same logics that the current decolonial struggles seek to eradicate. Telescoping out to current South African politics, a conversation currently happening from within and between black communities (because this is the only zone from which this can happen with any validity) then contests; when black cishet patriarchs within decolonial struggles choose to frame anything that does not conform to their particular construction of decolonisation as being somehow divisive, as being somehow geared towards a derailing of the struggle, they simply fail to properly comprehend the struggle itself. The Trans Collective asks; if unlearning is not a fundamental part of the process, then when will the unlearning happen? To ask for some issues to be left at the door is to ask for people to be left at the door, to be excluded from the struggle- a reality powerfully embodied when members of the Trans Collective lay naked at the doors to the RMF exhibition, speaking truth to power in their provocation for people to step over them if they felt the consumption of content to be more important than actual bodies, actual lives. Commodification and thing-ification are tactics of colonial power, directly pointed to by the title of their statement on the intervention: Tokenistic, objectifying, voyeuristic inclusion is at least as disempowering as complete exclusion.

If this article has spoken to the importance of the Trans Collective’s perspectives for the decolonialisation project generally speaking, it is to drive home the significance of their theorising from the margins, to highlight the wealth of insights they have courageously offered-up to the ongoing struggle and some of the ways in which they have given that content. However, the intervention was the performance of justified rage against their erasure, against the co-option of their bodies as public persuasion rhetoric, against the hypocrisy of knowledge that what might be exhibited as gains for the RMF have not necessarily translated into gains for them as black trans bodies; and this despite the Trans Collective being actively involved in the formation of RMF and standing on every hostile frontline- facing tear gas and stun grenades and violence with no hesitation for the heightened vulnerabilities their bodies may carry. They were undoubtedly entitled to the deliberate occupation of the exhibition space, to the radical act of reclaiming the meaning of their own bodies. Not only has the Trans Collective created a powerful, living archive of black trans contributions to decolonial struggles, but they have also stuck a thorn in the side of what liberation might mean, forcing decolonisation to face that which it has over-looked and, in doing so, become much stronger.

You can learn more about this this radical, black, trans, militant feminist, decolonial student movement, as well as read the official intervention statement here:

https://www.facebook.com/transfeministcollective

#RadicalBlackFeministMilitancy #Decolonization #BlackTransBodiesGivingContent #BlackTransBodiesReclaimingSpace #RMFTransCapture

15 March 2016
Alphabet Zoo is inviting cultural practitioners to participate in a zine making residency

Alphabet Zoo, the Johannesburg based collective founded by printmakers Minenkulu Ngoyi and Isaac Zavale is hosting zine making nights at the Bubblegum Club project space in Newtown.

Ngoyi and Zavale have extended an open invitation to cultural practitioners interested in collaborating on the development of a zine over a three “zine nights” residency in March. All the nights will take place on Wednesdays, the first being on the 16th, the second on the 23rd and the third on the 30th of the month. The zines produced during the residency will then be presented on the 7th of April 2016 at Bubblegum Club as part of the April edition of Newtown’s first Thursdays.

After discovering a lonely printing press in the Johannesburg Art Gallery Ngoyi and Zavale started meeting twice a week to use the press and create collaborative work under the name Alphabet Zoo. As a way to expand their printmaking practice and to apply it in a more accessible way the duo started zines focused on “street culture” in Johannesburg.

Alphabet Zoo’s zines are often produced in collaboration with artists, illustrators and publishers within the collectives network. Their desire now, to develop self-publishing practices and to grow zine culture in Johannesburg is what has inspired them to initiate zine nights, a project which they hope will take off in the city.

14 March 2016