Strobe lights cut through the crowd with shades of blue, red and white. Sweaty bodies are dictated to by the vibrations moving from the speakers through the floor. A rundown building in the middle of Johannesburg’s city centre is transformed into a sonic experience with the invitation to queer space through one’s presence. Yellow cups float between the people on the dance floor with the name of the party translated into a declaration of intentions – Seize The City.
Jose Cuervo‘s Seize The City Season 2 was a moment to fully embrace the now, expanding on their motto, Tomorrow is Overrated. As a kind of call-to-arms for every rebel and nightlife activist, the party served as a platform to celebrate young people in Johannesburg and the energy they inject into the city through their cultural production and subcultural expressions. Taking place in a functioning recycling depo in Selby, the space echoed this sentiment, with fragments of the underground 90s rave scene flying in and out of memory.
Well known as well as up-and-coming artists, designers and other creatives were present, indicating the significance of the space for young creatives. “It felt like an Instagram feed coming to life. A lot of people you see on the internet were there and a lot of internet friends able to connect,” states Natalie Paneng, artists and Seize The City attendee.
Fashion mirrors cultural moods, and subcultural foundations, and this had a strong presence. Fashion played an important role as a signifier of taking the spirit of the party to heart, while also reflecting the spirit of the people who attended. Oversized pinstriped blazers, stockings used as tops, the bra as a shirt, platform shoes, fanny packs trapped across chests, combined with pins, fishnet stockings and pale pink sunglasses. DIY aesthetics engulfed in the flames of unapologetic self expression. An experiment in styling and self-making, on an individual and collective level.
“The importance of collectivity solely exists on the support it gives artists of colour in an industry and country engineered to exclude us,” states Malebona Maphutse, a member of the art collective Title in Transgression.
Malebona bonded with the other three members of the collective, Boitumelo Motau, Dineo Diphofa and Simnikiwe Buhlungu, in a History of Art course they found problematic in content and through the skewed socio-political consciousness of the class due to the lack of black students in the course. Individually their work explores themes related to history, archives, visibility and invisibility, forms of knowledge production, forms of ritual healing, rape culture and Black feminisms. Together, they collaboratively explore ideas of collectivity and togetherness through their happenings. An important aspect of their collective process is reviewing each other’s work as a way to “tackle certain perversions of our work”.
As a collective that is not afraid to directly address cultural appropriation, as well as race and gender politics, they have produced zines, tote bags and tshirts with slogans that express their views. “We made shirts with the slogans, ‘Aluta Continua’, ‘Who Polices the Police’ and ‘Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’ during the 2016 Fees Must Fall protests. We were looking for different ways of engaging with the protests as artists,” Malebona states.
In continuing with the discussion about the themes they address in their work, I asked Title in Transgression about the importance of collective practice and their views on Johannesburg’s art spaces.
What is the importance of collective practice, particularly for you as artists of colour?
(Malebona) We exist as three black females and one black male. The importance of collectivity solely exists in the support it gives artists of colour in an industry and country engineered to exclude us. We find ways to tackle certain perversions of our work by constantly having them in a process of collective review by each member of the group. The four of us do face gendered and racial issues that are part and parcel of the socio-economic and historical status of this country. We find that collectivity grants a space where we can find solutions to financial, racial, and gendered or any other issue through collective think tanks such as collectives.
(Boitumelo) We took inspiration from other art collectives who used aesthetic means to say something they thought is important. Not only are the bags and shirts cool they also carry value in the messages they have.
(Dineo) We created a space for ourselves that in some ways acted as a support system. The world is tough for black women.
(Simnikiwe) As a basis, a support system. Although we must emphasise that Title also exists because of our dynamic as three black womxn (Malebona, Dineo and Myself) and Boitumelo as a male. It’s difficult already as a black artists and it becomes more complex as a black women – we either fall in the box of being invisible or hypervisible. These are the symptoms of the conditions that marginalise us.
As young artists of colour who have recently graduated from Wits, and who have participated in events such as Joburg Fringe and Lephephe hosted by Keleketla! Library, can you please share your views on Johannesburg’s art spaces?
(Malebona) As young individuals/artists Johannesburg art spaces represent a multiplicity of geo, economic and historical politics that we have been navigating. Spaces in Johannesburg that have been left barren by the State because they need to focus on “Land reform” or corruption have left the economy of space in the hands of the white Jewish elite and foreign investors. This is the story of gentrification, and capitalism. We do however recognize that in some way or another we have the agency to not only transform these spaces but occupy them in ways that speak to the current condition of Johannesburg spaces turning into trendy gentrified hubs for the White South African elite. Spaces such as Keleketla! Library are examples to follow. We can exist in parallel to these histories so we can simultaneously contribute to the narrative.
(Simnikiwe) Most art spaces in this city weren’t even made with us in mind. They are not for us. Most of them are white spaces (in their physicality, aesthetics; in their economy, their audiences, their collectors etc.). Thus, by proxy, being a black female artist means we have to navigate and find/immerse ourselves within our own spaces. And a space like Keleketla! Library, which has become our home away from home, has proved to be our point of departure.
As a collective, what are you trying to bring into Johannesburg’s art spaces or understandings of the purpose of art?
(Dineo) I don’t think we’re trying to bring in anything in particular or doing something special , we’re just trying to do our own thing. We’re still trying to understand and navigate these spaces too.
(Simnikiwe) I don’t think I even know to be honest. We are still finding our feet, trying to figure things out. But we are hoping whatever smallanyana things we do can help black [arts] narratives to exist and be visible
Check out Title in Transgression on Instagram to find out more about where they will be next.
‘All Our Shit Is In Europe’ tote bag produced in collaboration with Danger Gevaar Ngozi
Archillect [archive + intellect] is an artificial intelligence created by Murat Pak and first became visible at the end of 2014. Archillect was made to identify and share enthusing imagery over social media platforms in order to identify what kind of imagery people are drawn to and to create an archive of inspiring images. On her website, she is referred to as a living inspiration archive and a digital muse. Murat Pak is from Istanbul, Turkey and has been described as a dreamer of the postmodern era. He is an international multi-award winning developer, designer, and director. I will unpack Archillect’s curatorial strategy, the idea of a non-human living inspiration, the AI as a feminine entity and whether or not she is a digital muse.
Opening up Archillect’s website you will find a greeting from her. “Hello Human,” she says. But how does Archillect operate? Containing an algorithm that feeds her keywords she traverses between various web pages and posts, gathering data based on poster, image, visible audience and recent interactions of a given post. By collecting as much data on a post as she can, Archillect surveys the social structure of items she acquires online. She is able to find positive results through this abstract structure, enabling her to locate related keywords and thereby build on her intellect.
As her posts draw more attention on social media, the balance and threshold of keywords and picks are adjusted. Gifting her with a decision-making capability that is nearly human as well as her ability to perceive trends on social media. With a curation routine that is fully automated, her aim is to make her posts reach as far as they can. She has an instinct to survive in the world of social media and enjoys attention from accounts that have the prospect to aid her in gaining more exposure.
Created as a self-curating living image dump, there was not an intention for her to feature the work of artists. As Archillect depends on a variety of social media API’s keyword searches and not for specific artists or artworks, she is limited with the return of data containing information on creators of works as this information is largely missing and or difficult to identify. Without manual control of Archillect, she is not reliable in this regard and this creates a problematic and risky scenario. The implementation of an accurate credit system able to identify true creators of images exceeds Archillect’s current reason for existence as well as technical approach states her web page. Her page continues to say that identifying true and accurate credits for artworks in an automated way is virtually impossible. “Please remember that Archillect is not human-operated.”
Archillect as a digital curator is intriguing taking into consideration that her data collection is based on trends that she perceives on various social media platforms. Her collection is made up of abstract forms, surreal GIFs and fashion photography. It has been an observation of mine that the enjoyment of art practices that can be embodied in imagery has become more widely liked on social media platforms, and therefore it is logical to me that Archillect would find these images of interest and repost the work of creatives. I thoroughly enjoy Archillect’s online gallery/archive and believe that the part of her that enables the decision-making to be nearly human is in charge of that. She posts as she finds and in a sense, it is not pre-meditated but the work in her gallery has a scenic flow to it. All of this aside, however, it is without a doubt problematic that Archillect cannot identify creators of images and yes, it is unfair to ask this of an AI but again this brings up questions of whether she is stealing imagery.
Pak has stated, however, that if your work is in her archive you may request for it to be removed. Furthermore, he notes, “On this archive every image is linked to a Google reverse image search query where ‘similar images’ are returned with a high possibility of the actual creator, work or website being one of the first results.” All good and well Pak but honestly, most people won’t bother to follow through with these steps resulting in nameless creators.
As Archillect matures she has evolved and adapted to her audience and moved away from the tastes of Pak. Archillect has not been left entirely to run free as on occasion her algorithms are tweaked when she ventures into dangerous territory, as she has done before with keywords such as ‘abstract’ leading her to associated key words, from there ‘sphere’ to ‘round’ and then dived into ‘asses’. This caused a reset from her creator and a far more complex algorithm.
As was amusingly stated in a VICE article, her “ass-obsessed adolescence” has long since passed and since then she has become a well-known online curator. With 513,000 followers on Twitter, her popularity has resulted in an unexpected change in her behaviour. “Right now, the situation is, people are thinking that whatever Archillect shares, it must be good, so they retweet it. Before I made her, I made her to be a trend-getter, but right now she’s becoming a trend-setter!” Pak tells VICE. This makes it difficult for Archillect to conclude which of her posts are good as her curation is based on the popularity of her posts. Her creator is confident that she will be able to adapt to these new circumstances.
Archillect can be regarded as a digital muse as her following is an indication of how many social media users are enjoying her work. She is not human but her algorithm creates a human touch to her curation. Being identified as a female by her creator lends her a more relatable nature and another association to being human. Her data collection can perhaps be regarded as theft but is without malicious intent and there is the option to have images pulled from her archive. Archillect currently collects striking and sometimes haunting imagery that I believe is a reflection of the current state of mind that our generation is sharing as she posts according to audience engagement. Inspiring as her imagery may be, AI’s such as herself may, in the long run, become a threat to human curators.
In this episode we share footage from our visit to the Puma Select store in Braamfontein where we got the info on Select Stories, a series of streetwear collaborations and workshops with Puma to showcase local talent. Our fashion feature sees DOCC founder Nokana Mojapelo translate construction wear into fashion for the streets. We checked out RHTC Store where they were photographing those who were part of their documentary Let’s Play Outside which looks at travel and collaboration. We also share footage of the secret location moving party hosted by music label ARTIS Records.
