Tag: goethe institut

South African Premiere of ‘NEW DIMENSIONS – Virtual Reality Africa’

Electric South and the Goethe-Institut present the South African premiere of New Dimensions – Virtual Reality Africa, a selection of Virtual Reality productions from Kenya, Senegal and Ghana. These works will show within the Virtual Encounters section of the 2017 Encounters South African International Documentary Film Festival.

With more people on the continent taking an interest in creating VR productions, Electric South is funding and incubating virtual reality and interactive media in Africa. Supported by Big World Cinema, Blue Ice Docs and the Bertha Foundation for New Dimensions, Electric South and Goethe-Institut are invested in making African artists and filmmakers part of the foundations that direct the way VR technology goes in the future.

Co-founder of Electric South and curator of Virtual Encounters, Ingrid Kopp has been a curator of interactive and immersive media at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. With this experience she has come to recognize that it is difficult for people to understand what the fuss is about when it comes to VR unless they attend a festival or exhibition. “My aim is to get people excited about what story-driven VR can do – all the different approaches and styles,” Ingrid explains. With this year’s festival taking place in Johannesburg and Cape Town, Ingrid is excited that, “more people will get a chance to see the work and I hope that it will inspire more African creators to make VR.”.

Selly Raby Kane – The Other Dakar

New Dimensions – Virtual Reality Africa offers a view of the continent’s diverse cultural landscape. Included is Ghanaian science fiction author and founder of the Afrocyberpunk website, Jonathan Dotse’s ‘Spirit Robot’. This is an exploration of the vibrant Chale Wote Street Art Festival in Accra. Viewers can also experience Kenyan photographer Ng’endo Mukii’s layered live footage and animation city poem ‘Nairobi Berries’. The surrealist work of Senegalese fashion designer Selly Raby Kane ‘The Other Dakar’ will provide attendees with a magical 360 piece in which a girl is chosen to discover the invisible Dakar. Kenya’s The Nest Collective provide a futuristic thought experiment with their interactive work ‘Let This Be A Warning’ that presents a group of Africans who have left Earth to create a colony on a distant planet.

Virtual Encounters shows from 2 to 4 June at the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, and from 8 to 10 June at The American Corner (Central Library) in Cape Town.

For more information checkout the Encounters website and the Virtual Encounters event on Facebook.

Ng’endo Mukii – Nairobi Berries

26 May 2017
Must-see films at the European Film Festival

Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria will be host to some exciting cinematic productions as part of this year’s European Film Festival. With films addressing a wide variety of topics, we selected The High Sun, Strike a Pose, Game of Checkers and American Honey as must-see films. These films will allow audiences to travel through time and across continents to witness stories of love, displacement, loss and the carefree recklessness of youth all from the comfort of a movie theatre seat. Visit their website to find out more about the festival’s programme.

5 May 2017
Bubblegum Club Top Picks for European Film Festival

Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria will be host to some exciting cinematic productions as part of this year’s European Film Festival. With films addressing topics such as animal rights, family dynamics, experiences of war and heartbreak, audiences will be entertained as well as offered moments of contemplation. Having looked through their diverse programme, we selected four must-see films.

The High Sun

The High Sun directed by Dalibor Matanić addresses feelings of loss, displacement, love and pain caused by the Serbo-Croatian conflict over three decades through the magnifying glass of love. Three love stories played by the same actors at three different moments reveals how love tries to survive across ethnic lines. The first story takes place in pre-war 1991 while fear and hatred grows, with the tension culminating in an unexpected display of violence in reaction to two lovers from opposing sides. We fast forward to 2001 where we are introduced to a moody teenager who returns to her ruined home with her mother. Her mother is determined to rebuild their home with the help of a man from the other side. Unable to let go of the memory of her brother’s death, the hints of romance between the teenager and the builder have little chance to blossom. We fast forward again to 2011, to what appears to be a happier atmosphere, but as the story unfolds we are privy to wounds and heartbreak that have been masked and fermenting for years. With each story taking place during the height of Summer, the sun takes on a symbol of the burning tension between both sides, as well as a container for memories of love and pain.

Strike a Pose

This documentary directed by Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan revisits the lives of seven dancers who were part of Madonna’s controversial 1990 tour, Blond Ambition. During the tour and through a documentary about the tour, Madonna made very clear statements about gay rights and the need for more attention to be given to HIV/Aids prevention. Through Strike a Pose we seen how her main group of back up dancers, made of mostly gay men, paid the price for her outspokenness in multiple ways. We see them reflect on their inner battles and secrets they had to keep from each other and the world, as well as their pride from being able to be part of such a powerful tour, both from a musical and social sense. In between conversations with the dancers and their family members, we see snippets of their current lives, and witness moments of pause and reflection through the dance pieces they perform.

Game of Checkers

Portuguese director Patricia Sequeira allows us to spend a night with five best friends in a spacious secluded home that was owned by their dead friend, Marta.

There is arguing, crying, cooking, eating, drinking, smoking and painful laughter as the friends reopen wounds and share secrets. We feel their ache of growing old as they are learning how to deal with endings.

All seated at the dining table, the friends explain how a female life is a game of checkers, although it may be filled with great joys, a tireless list of burdens is an inevitable part of womanhood.

Sequeira beautifully captures the vulnerability and pain of each character with invasive frames. It is almost as if the audience is an intruder as we learn about the diverse dynamics among them.

Poignant discussions about the changes experienced in lifelong relationships suggest an uncertain future for the group of friends.

American Honey

Andrea Arnold’s latest film American Honey (2016) captures the carefree recklessness of youth. In the British directors drama road film, we follow the life of a captivating teenage girl named Star (Sasha Lane).

Originally from Texas, the American Honey, Star dumpster dives to sustain the livelihood of two young children who live with her in a troubled home. It is evident that Star longs for a starkly different life. From the minute that she catches a glimpse of Jake’s (Shia LaBeouf) eye, Star sees a hope for her future.

Star ventures into the unknown with a group of wildly fun individuals who are led by a fierce woman named Krystal (Riley Keough). They travel across America’s Midwest to sell an endless list of magazine subscriptions. Star the rookie of the group is paired with veteran and phenomenal salesman, Jake. They naturally make a cosmic connection which is interfered with by curiosity, deception and the misadventures of survival.

Arnold uses intimate frames with vibrant colours, electric characters, clamorous hip-hop, introspective dialogue, flirting and sexual energy which make the mundane plot stimulating. American Honey is a long, messy, organic observation of youthful passion and the pursuit for purpose.

3 May 2017
Everything you need to know about Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival 2016

“Ungaphthelwa Innovation Yako” / “Own Your Innovation”

In a collaboration between City of Johannesburg, Tshimologong Precinct and Wits University, this year’s Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival is created for conversations, collaborations and projects for Africans by Africans. It runs from the 19th of August until the 3rd of September. The annual festival is an “African celebration of digital technology, art and culture” in Johannesburg aimed at encouraging people in the city and on the continent more broadly to own their creativity and innovation through thinking about and constructing African visualization of the city, the digital, the playful and the future. With this year’s larger theme being the “AFRO TECH RIOT”, explorations of African knowledge systems, femininity, community and spirituality in relation to technology and the digital are the threads pulled throughout the two-week long festival. Johannesburg’s newly constructed tech hub Tshimologong on 47 Juta Street Braamfontein will be turned into a collaborative space through workshops, talks, installations, exhibitions, performances, pitches, awards, parties and gaming.. The festival asks participants to think about and engage with the idea that relationship between art, technology and creativity are “culturally embedded phenomenon” (Bristow 2014: 168). The revolutionary spirit of the festival is supported by its other partners British Council’s ConnectZA, Goethe Institut, and the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE).

Major events this year include old time favourites along with new exciting projects and talks:

Fak’ugesi Digital African Residency in which local and international digital artists and creatives are invited to be on residency to explore the festivals theme. This year, with Pro Helvetia Johannesburg, saw an open call for creatives within the SADC region. The festival residents will be exhibiting their work and participating in discussions in the Reverse Digital Hustle (with Livity Africa) on the 24th of August, the Fak’ugesi Residents Exhibition from the 29th to the 30th of August, as well as being part of other smaller workshops at Tshimologong and the Fak’ugesi Soweto Pop Up in Orlando East. This year’s residents are Vuyi Chaza from Zimbabwe, Cebo Simphiwe Xulu and Regina Kgatle from South Africa.

The Agile Africa Conference (22 & 23 August) hosts African software professionals to discuss and brainstorm better ways of working with and creating software, as well as what this means within an African context.

This year also includes a talks program in which digital artists and technological innovators discuss African knowledge systems in technology and the digital space and get a deeper understanding of “cultures of technology” (Bristow 2014: 169). The first being the Reverse Digital Hustle Talk featuring this year’s residents and guest Tabita Rezaire (24 August). We also see Fak’ugesi’s twin festival CairoTronica feature with its Director Haytham Naywar forming part of the second Fak’ugesi Talks (26 August) along with Joshua Noble and The Constitute.

The role of women in technology is being given multiple chances in the limelight this year with events including Maker Library Network & Geekulcha Open Data Quest workshop (24 August) which challenged participants to use online data about Women and Human Settlements to put together a story board that explores and tries to address the social relations involved around these social issues. Other events include the Women in Tech @ Fak’ugesi (29 August) which is a discussion and networking platform focused on the need to support and highlight the achievements of women in the tech industry. The Creative Hustle as part of the new Fak’ugesi Talks program with ConnectZA, puts together industry professionals Karen Palmer and Valentina Floris to talk about pushing boundaries and how technology and creativity combine.

In thinking about technology by African for Africans, #HackTheConstitution (26 August) provides an interactive version of South Africa’s constitution in which lawyers, developers, UX specialists and artists are invited to work on creating a prototype app that can make the Constitution more accessible.

A MAZE Johannesburg will be adding to the playful aspect of the festival with their events, talks and workshops running from 31st of August to the 3rd of September for gaming enthusiasts.

The Market Hack, one of the festivals popular events, with ConnectZA and South African Maker Collective (27 August) is a daylong takeover of The Grove at South Point (Braamfontein) involving activities related to play and learning about 3D printing, virtual reality and sound.

Maker Library Network & Geekulcha (1 September) will be running 3D fashion experience in collaboration with designers from the Tshwane Fashion Project to explore how the 3D experience can add to the fashion industry.

Also new to the program is a “future sounds” workshop (25 – 27 August) with Goethe Johannesburg will bring together the Create Africa Collective and Berlin-based digital artist, The Constitute, to mix technological innovation with the re-imagining of sound. The results of this collaboration will form part of the Alight Bloc Party/Tshimologong Precinct Launch (1 September) and will light up the Precinct with featured projects including Future Sounds, installations provided by UK-based creative studio SDNA and light-based installations from South African artists to officially open up the Precinct.

The A MAZE and Fak’ugesi Soweto Pop Ups (27 and 28 August) will be held at Trackside Creative in Orlando East which will provide a mixture of virtual reality experiences, game design workshops, live digital installations and various projects related to video, performance and other technological forms.

Visitors can also check out The Rotating Exhibition Room which has an ongoing exhibition until the 31st of August featuring video art from artist Magdalena Kallenberge, Ahmed Esher, Carly Whitaker, Mohamed Allam, Foundland and students from The Animation School.

To find out more information about the festival and to look up the other smaller workshops and events they will be running check out their website

References:

Bristow, T. (2013). “We want the Funk”.

Bristow, T. (2014). “From Afrofuturism to Post African Futures”.

24 August 2016