Tag: Tabita Rezaire

Is Algorithm the new Abstract?

Watching the contemporary art scene evolve is a little bit like watching a sports game as a complete philistine with no knowledge of the rules. You can’t really tell who the star player is, you’re definitely not sure where the ball is going to go, you have no conception of what is allowed or not allowed, and just when you think you’ve gotten the grips of it, something unexpected happens and it is all upended.

As with so many fields, technology has infiltrated the contemporary art scene. So just as you thought you were beginning to understand the Tracey Emin’s, the Ai Wei Wei’s, the Nicholas Hlobo’s, the Nandipha Mntambo’s, the art world threw you a curve-ball in the shape of the algorithm.

Now I would like to think I am no novice when it comes to art but ask me about coding or Java or (I can’t even think of another word to put here) then I am stumped. As long as I can open my emails and post instastories then I don’t need to know. It is like that time old saying – “If you love something, don’t find out how it is made.” But now, the foreign language of programming is seeping into my perfect little contemporary art comfort zone, and I might need to start learning the rules.

Ellsworth Kelly – Spectrum Colours arranged by chance III. 1951

So as every good writer and researcher in the 21^st century does, I went straight to Google (Ironically using its complex algorithms). Google told me that an algorithm was a “set of rules, or a process used in calculations or other problem-solving operations.” I mean if I’m honest, this didn’t help me much. As a society that are more attached to our devices than perhaps could ever have been predicted. Something that has always resonated with me was the video produced in 2015 of Otis Johnson, who had been released from prison after 44 years of incarceration. In this short interview with Al Jazeera, he gets off the subway at Times Square and is immediately bewildered by what he first thought was everyone talking to themselves but turned out to be what we all know to be FaceTime. It was the first moment where I sat and really considered how detached from reality we really are.

Each step on a Fitbit, each 4am tweet, each calorie counted, or song downloaded is being controlled by that terrifyingly foreign language of code. Plebs like myself see 0s and 1s, and lots of disruptive / and ? and * and [ ] – yet the next generation contemporary artist is seeing infinite possibilities.

Screenshot from selected/deleted/populated/isolated – cities in the global south, 2016 by Carly Whitaker

Take Laurie Frick, a New York based artist, who has used various data-trackers to create large-scale representations of ‘self.’ In 2012, using the app Moodjam, Frick tracked her emotions and moods over the course of several days and then created works like the one below as visual articulations of this data. At first glance we see work akin to the mid-century minimalists Sol LeWitt, or Ellsworth Kelly. Closer to home, Johannesburg’s Carly Whitaker’s Selected/Deleted/Populated/Isolated from 2016 uses collected, collated data to consider the representation of ‘other’ and uses Photoshop to disrupt and distort Google map images to create connections between cities in the global south. Each of these examples reflects on how digital data can lead to the abstraction or reorganisation of information.

And so, I ask, has the new artistic tech-evolution redefined the abstract?

Now that the digital age has permeated so much of our daily activity, how do we, as consumers of art, consider its permeation into the galleries? A large part of this new age of art seems to reflect on digital as disruptive. We see the background interfaces of the world wide web or distorted virtual realities – the relatively comfortable spaces of Google, Facebook and Instagram are discarded for the more uneasy abstract depths of the internet. Artists seem to be playing with the very ‘physicality of art’ – algorithms are used to create sketches that seem made of the human hand (See Jon McCormack’s Niche Constructions for example,or more fragmented abstract video works (like those of Casey Reas, or Diego Collado), or play with the developing technologies of virtual and augmented reality (See Blocked Content by the Russian collective Recycle Group or the work by Paul McCarthy and Christian Lemme.

While some of the Western world thinks we still ride elephants in South Africa, our digital artists are in their own way coming of age – spurred on by innovative spaces like the Centre for the Less Good Idea who had a Virtual Reality exhibition last year, and the annual Fak’ugesi festival that celebrates the rise of African digital innovation.

CUSS Group – New Horizons Installation Shot. 2016

Two years ago, I went to the New Horizons exhibition presented by the CUSS group at the Stevenson, and left feeling bewildered. As one expects when they see life-size pixelated dog statues, couches floating in Dali-esque, virtual waters and photoshopped couples superimposed into neon-blue digitally rendered nightclubs that look like the infamous Avastar (may it RIP). Were they considering the banality of the internet, the superficiality and excess of capitalist culture, the absurdity of digital programmes like photoshop and the constructed ‘realities’ they create, or perhaps they were just commenting on society’s gluttonous consumption of the ‘digital dream.’

Part of what the age of the algorithm means is that the digital is inescapable. Even Home Affairs uses computers these days. And as artists begin to consider the complexities of this omnipresent and opaque technology, we as viewers need to be prepared to confront a new abstract.

CUSS Group – New Horizons Installation Shot. 2016

Many contemporary South African artists are transcending the boundary of the screen or page and using 3D ‘collages’ to juxtapose the virtual with the corporeal. At the Post African Futures exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in 2015, Pamela Sunstrum and Thenjiwe Nkosi created a visual cacophony, Notes from the Ancients, and used installation to contrast the now all too familiar motherboard, with 3D printed masks mirrored on ‘traditional’ African artefacts, murals of mine-dump sand dunes, and defunct technology. This type of disruptive installation makes us constantly try to construct connections, to create some type of linear understanding. Frequently we are left dissatisfied, or with so many ideas spinning in our head we feel dizzy.

Tabita Rezaire’s Exotic Trade of 2017, also exhibited at the Goodman Gallery, considered the erasure of black womxn from the “dominant narrative of technological achievement” (Rezaire 2017) and how much of scientific advancement has capitalised from the ‘availability’ of the black body. The juxtaposition of images from African spirituality, the ‘glitchy’ virtual world, the jarring electric pink gynaecologist examination table, and the omnipotent, frequently ‘sexualised’ or ‘maternalised’ black womxn body are jarring reminders of the darker side of the digital arena. The motherboardby name reiterates the ‘mother earth’, maker of all – but disrupts the notion of the natural by the ubiquitous computer. We are confronted with a maze of imagery, that traverses the boundaries of the body, and technology itself.

As we begin to adjust to a new abstract, I ask – “where to from here?”

Tabita Rezaire – Sugar Walls Teardom, 2016 from Exotic Trade

20 March 2018
Cities that float

Kunlé Adeyemi challenges the perception that to modernize is directly translated to the western trajectory of design and development. With the intention of addressing issues related to rapid urbanization and climate change within the African context, Kunlé Adeyemi and his architecture company NLÉ are constantly developing a number of urban, research and architectural projects in Africa. One of Adeyemi’s well-known designs is ‘Makoko Floating School’, an innovative, prototype, floating structure located on the lagoon heart of Lagos. This came from the looking at the impact of climate change – rising sea levels, frequent flooding, etc. – leaving cities located near the sea most at risk. A conclusion was drawn stating that the relationship between water and the city on the African continent has become a “critical intersection for understanding the future of development in Africa” (The Royal Institute of Art 2015).

‘INNER FIRE: Bow Down’ by Tabita Rezaire image from The Goodman Gallery

The 2017 solo exhibition of artist Tabita Rezaire at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg titled Exotic Trade, when discussed in relation to the conversation around water and the city adds an extra layer for consideration. Her work brought water into the realm of technology, by framing it as a database from which information is stored, shared and downloaded. In other works she also refers to water as a source of healing. She also connects water to colonial trade roots, making this a loaded exhibition.

‘Makoko Floating School’ falls into a larger project titled the African Water Cities project – an urban, sociocultural, political and economy catalyst for adapting coastal African cities to the impact of climate change within the context of rapid urbanization.

‘Dilo’ by Tabita Rezaire image from The Goodman Gallery

When connecting Rezaire and Adeyemi, there is a historical, (post)colonial thread that is pulled across artistic, architectural and academic viewpoints. An aspect of this becomes about re-establishing a relationship with resources and conceptual frameworks within which these resources are interpreted. Another aspect becomes about the importance of creating architectural and design projects that speak directly to the context within which they will be placed, which involves an understanding of past and present mythologies, traumas and imaginaries that revolve around water. This can be seen through Adeyemi’s attempt to respond to environmental and social crises through design that takes into account how African coastal cities are inhabited. Perhaps the future could be cities that float; float on water and on an understanding of water as a technology, a source of healing and container of history.

16 January 2018
NTU: UBULAWU // Collaborative Transcontinental Healing Practices in East London’s Auto Italia

Mounds of earth erupt from a soft slate coloured screed floor. Soil cocoons containing rectangular white boxes pepper the project space. Informative posters hang vertically off the walls, divulging details about Ubulawu – a collection of plants traditionally used in South African spiritual practice. The exhibition explores an Afrocentric approach to decolonial healing through ancient systems, disseminated through the digital. A combination of sculptural pieces, video installation and symbolic imagery prompt potential prophetic dreamscapes. Channels for interdimensional communication are activated throughout the art-space.

NTU is a collective of artists including Nolan Oswald Dennis, Tabita Rezaire and Bogosi Sekhukhuni. Their first debut in London is rooted in a larger research project, NTUSAVE which draws on their collective interests and art practices. Nolan describes the project as, “a deep meditation on the psycho-spiritual interspecies alliance between human consciousness and plant intelligence. This project draws on ancient African knowledge and protocols around the use of specific agencies of plant-life to recover technologies that grant access to interdimensional flows of consciousness and information. NTUSAVE is currently working with ubulawu oneirogenic preparations of Southern African plants to recode properties of water as an agent of consciousness.”

In conversation with Marianne Forrest, one of the artists who runs the project alongside Kate Cooper and Edward Gillman, positioned the space as a platform to, “make NTU’s ongoing research public, which has been an exciting provocation, and to bring their practice as a group to the UK for the first time where it feels particularly interesting to have their voice, seeking new dialogues and presenting new modes of research not usually seen or discussed within the London art scene.”

Collectivity and an expansive approach to artistic production and the mode in which it occupies spaces is a common interest. “We were particularly interested in how the group was exploring ideas around networks of production and alternative conceptions of interfaces – thinking through practices for creating connection and community and exploring ideas of healing potential and spirituality online and in digital production.”

Auto Italia (Marleen Boschen, Theo Cook, Kate Cooper, Marianne Forrest, Andrew Kerton, Jess Wiesner), MY SKIN WAS AT WAR WITH A WORLD OF DATA, performance as part of ‘sunrise sunset’, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2016. Photograph: Frank Sperling

Auto Italia was founded on principles of collaboration. The project space began a decade ago when “a group of recent art graduates came together to try and create an autonomous space to make, produce and show work. No one could afford a studio and there was a desire to see what could be made working collaboratively and self-organising – creating a space in the city that was for us, and striving towards a generative and generous model that would allow us to dream up projects with other artists that we really admired.”

Marianne expanded in the rich history of the project, “from the beginning, there was a desire to understand what it meant to have space; the first ever building we were occupying was a squatted car garage in South London, and from then until around 2014 we operated fairly nomadically… We were constantly thinking through what having physical space might mean, especially with the concurrent shift towards making, producing and sharing work digitally, and the increasingly inhospitable landscape of London as a city artists could actually afford to be in.”

Auto Italia (Marleen Boschen, Theo Cook, Kate Cooper, Marianne Forrest), On Coping, 2015.

Over the last ten years a network of new communities have been established through engaging with notions of “labour, gender, performativity and formats for collective production.” A continuous presence has been maintained in the city. “We often think about Auto Italia as something useful that can enable the artists working within it to access tools, whether that be budgets, different production modes, new networks and so on – and with the work of SA collectives like NTU and CUSS we see that same approach of exploding expectations in what art can be and enact, and using the power of collaborative working to create a scene of producers who support and champion each other in defining their own terms of production.”

Decoloniality is life after death, NTU doesn’t die, we multiply.

– Nolan Oswald Dennis

Auto Italia, Auto Italia LIVE: Double Dip Concession, 2012, live broadcast from the ICA, London, as part of the exhibition ‘Remote Control’. Photograph: Ryan McNamara

15 May 2017
Tabita Rezaire – Transforming the screen into a gateway for healing frequencies

Johannesburg-based digital artist, intersectional activist and Kemetic yoga teacher Tabita Rezaire is spreading love and inviting healing through her screen-based artistic practice. Having moved to Johannesburg a few years ago from Paris, she has been continuing to work within the Internet’s ecology to confront the legacies of colonialism and address our collective need for healing.

Tabita navigates her personal life and art embracing decoloniality – a theory and practice that involves a de-linking from the West and becoming one’s own centre. She encourages us to unlearn and reboot as she tries to connect with herself, people and life with love and gratitude, and with the intention to heal herself and others around her.

Her work is geared towards a spiritual technology and thinking about how we can become spiritual humans beings again. Through her “digital healing activism” she challenges our cis-het-patriarchal-racist-capitalist system through the use of the screen as her medium. Bringing an awareness to African cosmologies and the sacred power of the womb, she presents a diagnostic of the pain felt by Trans/Queer/Black/Brown/Femme beings and proposes a strategy through decolonial technologies which can allow us to reconnect with ourselves, each other, the earth and our ancestors to bring about holistic healing and an outpouring of love.

Tabita’s work transforms the screen into a gateway, inviting the viewer on a spiritual journey. The screen becomes an interface which allows access to therapeutic vibrations, healing frequencies and tools for working towards “soundness”.

The womb is a prominent symbol in her works. This is a push back against the demonizing, shaming and disposing of women’s bodies and femme energies which has polluted our world through patriarchal structures. Tracing back to times when femme-ness was celebrated, Tabita is invested in restoring our relationship with the womb and reviving an understanding of its sacred, love- and life-giving power. For her, addressing this disconnection from the womb offers a door through which we can learn to love ourselves.

Her first solo exhibition, Exotic Trade, will be taking place at Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg on the 8th of April. As a continuation of her digital decolonizing and connecting to the power that has come before her, this exhibition celebrates alternative ways of sharing and accessing information through what Tabita has called the “cosmos database”. As she has done with previous work, Tabita threads together ecology, digital technology and spiritual communicative practices to address the history and architecture of modern technology. She unearths hidden narratives, as in one of her works which discusses the origin of computing sciences being found in African divination. Her exhibition will also delve into ancestral communicative interfaces: the womb, sound, plants, ancestors and water as databases from which we can download information. She investigates water as a signal carrier from the internet to memories about the traumatic history of colonial routes, the disruption of oceanic ecologies, as well as the healing potential that water offers. The show includes six video arrangements and a series of five prints, a lightbox, and helper metal structures. She will include earthy materials such as copper and bismuth as a symbol of her desire to re-connect and celebrate with the earth.

Analyzing the healing potentiality of sound, Tabita is also working collaboratively with FAKA, Hlasko, and Chi (Robert Machiri) to create a “healing soundscape” for the show. Her exhibition space will be used for a Kemetic yoga class on the 13th of April, followed by a conversation with Milisuthando Bongela from the Mail & Guardian. This transference of the experience from the screen and prints on display to an embodiment through physical movement speaks to Tabita’s emphasis sharing ancient wisdom in all areas of our lives.

Special thanks to the Goodman Gallery, BDSM Dominatrix and Snake Bite Assist for supporting the shoot.

Shoot Credits

Photography by Paul Shiakallis

Styling by Jamal Nxedlana

Hair & Makeup by Orli Meiri

Bondage accessories by Mistress Kink & Master Grant (BDSM Dominatrix)

Snake handling by Arno Naude (Snake Bite Assist)

6 April 2017
Bubblegum Club Stories Ep7

In this episode of Bubblegum Club Stories curator of the South African Pavilion Lucy MacGarry chats to us about artists Candice Breitz and Mohau Modisakeng, and their work on identity construction. Tabita Rezaire helps us find the light for our inner fire and gives us a head’s up for next solo show “Exotic Trade”. Director Lenzo dishes us a Korean-style inspired look. German media artist Lorenz Potthast chats to us about his contribution to the opening exhibition at the new space TheOtherRoom Durban. We also speak to Lebogang Rasethaba about his creative process and what he is working on at the moment.

10 March 2017
Videonomad – exploring the continent through interconnected engagements

A multiplicity of pixels emerges in waves radiating through the digital screen. Virtual information trickles onto foreign shores, extending telegenic space. The wondering travelers congregate together, bound beyond borders to construct reciprocal relationships in an increasingly globalized world.

In 2013, VIDEONOMAD was born. The project stemmed from a desire to create a visible platform for video art, specifically engaging in work from the continent and its diaspora. Director, Tobi Ayedadjou, and Co-ordinator Lucia Nhamo, “love the idea of itinerant screenings around the world because it mimics the global reality and relevance of our transnational interconnectedness.”

Various iterations of the project have been explored around the globe – having been invited to participate in exhibitions and screenings in Tokyo, Pesaro, Salvador and Kalamata. VIDEONOMAD were also at Dak’art OFF during the biennale in Senegal.

My story, no doubt, is me/older than me, 05:57, 2015, Kitso Lynn Leliott, South Africa

The latest manifestation, taking place between the 13th-15th of October will be held in the heart of Harare’s city centre at the Njelele Art Station. “With this iteration we are not only screening in southern Africa for the first time, but we’re also hosting a multi-faceted programme over the course of three days. We saw an incredible opportunity from the Pro Helvetia ANT grant to invite a select group of artists from countries around southern Africa to engage with the arts community in Harare.”

The selection of artists seeks to facilitate the “mobility of a strong group of artists both from different countries in the region, and who are at different stages of their careers.” Part of the process will include a reciprocal exchange, as the group will contribute to and be enriched by the lineup in Harare.

Lazy Nigel , 11:41, 2014, Simon Gush, South Africa

The artists based in South Africa on show include Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kitso Lynn Lelliot, Lerato Shadi, Simon Gush and Tabita Rezaire. The thematic thread linking this exceptional and eclectic group of artists predominantly revolve around notions of power, identity, and a sense of located context. These prominent names often interrogate the multifaceted geo-political fabric of the South African context.

Peppered amongst this cohort are the names of other artists situated conceptually and geographically in southern Africa: Berry Bickle, Cosmo Zengeya, Fransix Tenda, Kombo Chapfika, Lucia Nhamo, Mario Macilau, Masimba Hwati and Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

Through the collective engagement of these individual artists VIDEONOMAD hopes to, “widen the definition of what is possible in the art space context, both conceptually and in terms of video art as a medium.” In establishing and extending dynamic relationships between video art makers from the continent, VIDEONOMAD greatly enriches a globalized art scene. “Communing together in one space as artists from different countries and practices can only serve towards that goal.”

11 October 2016
SENEB House – Curing the Colonial Wound

‘We’re not all mystics who can extract beauty from our pain.’

– K Sello Duiker

The French-born Johannesburg-based artist and mother of SENEB House, Tabita Rezaire, locates her decolonial practice in healing and artmaking. In her work, the digital screen is engaged as a politicised site. Articulated as an intersectional preacher in digitised activism, donning a 90’s collage aesthetic, Tabita unapologetically seeks to cure the colonial wound.

The notion of SENEB is derived from the symbol of health in ancient Kemeticism and extends to ‘be sound’ or ‘to have soundness’. The fabric of the universe and everything within it is said to emit energy vibrations on a spectrum of frequencies – creating a perception of discord and difference. However, “we are a connected mass of energy.” Tabita describes SENEB as utilizing this power of vibrational energy to heal an array of wounds, including the physical, emotional, technological, historical and spiritual. It operates as an African and Diasporic community engaging in healing technologies, an “energy center for us to remember, feel, (re)connect, share and vibrate high to nurture our health, energy and wisdoms.” At its core is collectivity, “it takes a whole community to heal someone.”

She perceives the world largely as a racist-cis-het-capitalist-patriarchal one, “designed to break us down and keep us in a state of lower vibration which makes us emotionally, mentally, politically and spiritually unbalanced.” Health practices are largely entangled in the capitalist and political agenda constructed as the ‘pharmaceutical-medico-legal complex’ which Tabita believes “directly benefits from our energetic imbalances.” The Queer/Trans/Femme/Black/Brown/Indigenous/Poor communities are greatly affected by this system. “This is the continuing legacy of colonial history, the same bodies are denied humanity and exploited, the same people whose knowledge(s) are being erased, or capitalized on while made shameful, the same people hurting and the same people living [through] it all.”

In response to the need for alternatives, Tabita postulates that “understanding health more holistically outside of a western obsession with pathologies and symptom solving is also part of decolonization.” A revelatory experience in the Nile River lead her to following a “long tradition of worshiping Nile water for her healing power. I believe in her power, and believing is the first step of manifesting.” “Water is energy. Water is life. Literally. We are also made of up to 60% water so we are water, and we all come from the water of a womb. The same way it is weaponized against us as biological warfare – industrial pollution, forced chemical consumption, unfair distribution – water can be used to heal.”

Hoetep Blessings is a collective offering from Elizabeth Mputu, Fannie Sosa and Tabita. As an offering to spiritual Black femininity it “celebrates spiritual knowledges and Black femme technologies. It is a celebration of the divine power of the cunt, a litany for survival and pleasure, and a means to weaponize our melaneted femmeness.” Hotep, originally was understood as an altar, or to be at peace – it now also encompasses a “problematic category of Black men” in internet discourse. Hoetep Blessings is an expression of “unapologetic hoe-ness into political distress.”

Upon meeting Angela Davis, the icon said, ‘the young generation of activists stand on our shoulders, but we do not provide a steady foundation’. Tabita probed, “How do you keep walking when the ground is crumbling?”

27 September 2016
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
Women’s World Wide Web – Reviewing SA’s Feminist Movement in 2015

While it may be true that over the years certain features of the multilayered feminist project have been incorporated into laws and institutional structures, the emergent new wave expands on feminist ideals via new and varied avenues of protest against heteropatriarchal norms and values. In the South African context specifically, and across the globe more generally, collaborations between women; as well as their insights, information and imagery being distributed online, is evidence of a form of feminism that is increasingly innovative for its character of being part of everyday public life. As will be discuss in this essay, this new feminist project goes beyond institutional ideas of equality by engaging with the specific experiences and struggles attached to the female body and psyche through globally accessible online spaces.

Internationally, a formal emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment policies can be seen through happenings such as the African Union’s declaration on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, namely, the “African Women’s Decade 2010-2020” as well as popular actress Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame being appointed the United Nations’ new Goodwill Ambassador in 2014, focusing specifically on women with UN’s gender equality HeForShe campaign.

These are instances indicating that a macro level emphasis on gender equality is far from dormant. It is however important to note that there have been continuously evolving renderings of feminist movements (the plural needs to be emphasized as not all feminist groupings are able to speak to all experiences of womanhood) on more micro-levels, particularly sparked by technological changes in the platforms women use to articulate their presence in society. While women may not be burning bras, they are certainly igniting a new kind of fire amongst themselves – in some cases even getting rid of their bras as seen by the #FreeTheNipple campaign.

During an interview with poet and activist Lebohang ‘Nova’ Masango, she spoke to how what defines this upsurge of popularized feminism is its digital dimension. Social media has allowed for a proliferation of varied circulations of female realizations and representations. The internet has opened doors to new platforms on which women can articulate themselves, as well as allowing for a larger sense of community. As explained by Nova, “People are not afraid to self-identify as feminist anymore”. Of course, this popular embracing of women power is not only a result of internet connectivity but can also be attributed to celebrities like Beyoncé using her iconic status as a platform to advocate for a new brand of feminism, albeit mainstream. And perhaps this is what is new about feminism – it is no longer perceived to be a movement for marginalized female intellectuals, queer activists, or other such ostracized communities.

While Nova makes mention of the controversy around Beyoncé as a feminist figure given her irrefutable connection to both capitalism and consumerism (something that feminism as a political and social ideology is irrevocably at odds with), not to mention that for many men she is the ultimate sex symbol, the importance of her ascribing to the feminist label goes beyond semiotics. In sum, as an immensely talented, hugely successful business woman, she has made it clear to the world that feminists do not have to be frumpy. “You can be sexy…You can be married and have a career and whatever, you know,” says Nova.

Award-winning Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has also been an inspiration for the recognition that women can care about what they look like as well as be taken seriously in any chosen field. There is a strong emphasis on the need to encourage and celebrate women’s ability to play more than one role at a time. The article On smart women being ‘hot babes’ written by Simamkele Dlakavu sums this up aptly in which she states that a woman looking after herself “goes beyond the aesthetic, it is a political act…”. Another woman who is the epitome of women’s ability to be successful in multiple roles is South African novelist Lauren Beukes. She is an award-winning, internationally best-selling novelist who has written some of South Africa’s contemporary greats including Zoo City and her most recent book, Broken Monsters which won best adrenaline novel in American Library Association’s 2015 Reading List for adult fiction. She in addition to this writes comics, TV shows and films. Her documentary Glitterboys & Ganglands about contestants in South Africa’s biggest female impersonator pageant won Best GLBT Film at one of the largest black film festivals, the San Diego Black Film Festival in 2012. Her work is injecting a strong female presence in genres that are heavily dominated by men.

The intersectional nature of women moving purposefully is a clear foundation of this contemporary feminism, where groups are coming together to address issues related their own experiences of womanhood, as it intersects with other experiences.

The Feminist Stokvel is one such example, where eight accomplished black women came together in 2014 with the aim of creating a “safe and nurturing space” for black women’s voices to be paramount.

Danielle Bowler, Kavuli Nyali, Lebogang Mashile, Milisuthando Bongela, Nova Masango, Panashe Chigumadzi, Pontsho Pilane, and Wisaal Anderson are the founders of the Stokvel. They have focused on the politics and pain around natural hair. As one of the founders, Nova explains that this is because “we [black women] have so much pain, trauma and shame attached to our hair”. In September the collective hosted The Feminist Stokvel Hair Soiree: Dem Baby Hairs in which women raising black children were invited to discuss and get advice on how to nurture their children’s’ hair. This was in recognition of the fact that the hair of black women is problematized from a young age when girls are instructed by schools on what hairstyles are appropriate. Flowing from their own experiences, their aim was for black hair to be an entry point through which other issues experienced by black women may be discussed.

This is an example of the zooming in on specific female experiences, as well as an attempt to re-define dominant ideas related to physical appearances. The platforms created by the collective pays long-overdue attention to experiences and evaluations of black hair and uses this as the medium through which to affect solidarity, self-love and self-appreciation. This is an example of gendered and racialized realities intersecting and being given a voice through the efforts of women working together – reclaiming the black woman’s body and allowing her to cultivate positive views about herself through a community of women on the same path. On their blog and Instagram page, the use of weekly hashtags such as #wwlw (Women We Love Wednesdays) and #FSFridays (Feminist Stokvel Fridays) are some of the ways in which they celebrate the achievements of their members as well as recognize the work of women more generally. These posts emphasize their attempt to expand definitions of beauty and to highlight women’s success at performing multiple roles. It also connects their work to the role that the internet and social media play in contributing to a feminist project.

While the use of the internet to extend feminist activism and to aid the possibilities for collaboration has been around since the ’90s, contemporary digi-feminism or cyber-feminism has progressively been taking on a more provocative nature. The ever-increasing use of social media and proliferation blogs and websites, and the production of digital art confronting and challenging power relations and gender imaginaries are all evidence of support for platforms used to critique hetero-patriarchal ideas and spaces.

A controversial and hugely popular campaign, #FreeTheNipple, protests the double standards women face regarding how their bodies are perceived and the censorship of their bodies. This campaign relies on women uploading images of exposed breasts. Celebrities and female MPs have participated in the campaign which aims to desexualize breasts. This campaign is turning traditional body politics on its head by arguing that all bodies should be protected and embraced. In doing so, the participants are advocating that holding onto notions related to heteronormativity are not only irrelevant but increasingly dangerous as they are used for the justification of physical and emotional violence, human rights abuses and exploitative beauty marketing campaigns.

In her video Afro Cyber Resistance, French-born and Johannesburg-based online artist and activist Tabita Rezaire questions the democracy of the internet by stating that it is a “colonized space”. She addresses the representation of marginalized identities within larger internet structures such as search engines, highlighting that “the internet is a space for sharing and disseminating information. And whoever controls this flow of information has power”. In response to this, she approaches the internet as it were a site of resistance, participating in the information that is uploaded online, and actively claiming internet space with contemporary and evocative digital imagery.

South African photographer Zanele Muholi’s latest book, Faces and Phases 2006-2014, contains portraits of queer black women is another instance of the fight to ensure that all bodies are permitted visibility in the public domain. The book was launched in December 2014, in conjunction with the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. It is comprised not only of gripping portraits of black women identifying as gay, lesbian, transgender or intersex, but also includes testimonies and poetry, allowing readers to see these women as more than just visuals, human, rich characters with even richer lives and histories. Same Mdluli in his article on Muholi’s book describes it as a heterogeneous collection of stories challenging what is perceived as ‘normal’ in terms of sexual orientation”. Jody Brand’s CHOMMA also offers a visual commentary on South Africa’s street life and gender-bending. She confronts the viewer with photographs that interrogate gender and sexuality stereotypes. Much like Rezaire is challenging the oppression of digitized spaces in her work, Muholi and Brand’s photography challenges ideas around heteronomativity, each one of them confronting ideas about spaces and faces in their own way.

Movement around issues of gender, race and power points to broader social, as well as economic initiatives where women are breaking barriers socially as well as making an impact on popular culture trends. The Other Girls is one such female collective that has Jo’burgers planning their social lives around The WKND Social. Inspired by New York’s brunch and laidback daytime party scene, Thithi Nteta, Nandi Dlepu, Vuyiswa Muthshekwane Nothando Moleketi and Tumi Mohale launched The WKND Social as an innovative way to get people to explore the different parts of the city through “Good Food. Good People. Good Music.” Held at different venues on a monthly basis, it is a refreshing and brave alternative to parties and events being primarily hosted and promoted by men.

Speaking about bravery, Cape Town based jewelry designer Katherine-Mary Mary Pichulik came out with a new jewelry series called Brave Women. Using portraits and videos of women wearing her accessories, she aims to highlight how these women “create, make and do in spite of their fears”. The most recent woman to be featured in her series is Talia Sanhewe, award-winning reporter, entrepreneur and founder of her own production company. Similarly, Vusiwe Mashinini, started her own production company when only but 23, called VM Productions, and with the aim of opening up a space for women in the male-dominated media production industry, Mashinini employs women with a variety of skills relevant for her company.

Female musicians, and rappers particularly, are also making their presence felt within the always developing hip hop scene. Ntsiki Mazwai, Yugen Blakrok, Miss Celaneous, Dope Saint Jude and Gigi Lamayne are some of South Africa’s female rappers who have been adding new flavour to the male-dominated rap scene. Mazwai stood up for herself and fellow female rappers in her open letter titled “Dear Brothers in SA Hip Hop” stating that male hip hop artists need to see women as their equals, not simply “as your back up vocalists or twerkers”. She also emphasized the importance of recognizing the contribution that female rappers have made to the growth and diversity of South African Hip Hop. Aside from their contributions to growth, these artists are also growing in leaps and bounds – and accordingly being recognized for it. Gigi Lamayne was the winner of the Best Female category at the 2013 South African Hip Hop Awards and Yugen Blakrok was nominated for Best Freshman, Best Female Emcee and Best Lyricist at the 2014 SA Hip Hop Awards.

Miss Celaneous and Dope Saint Jude, both from Cape Town, are women who are using their creative work to make commentary on perceptions of women, gender, sexuality, class and the Coloured community. Miss Celaneous is a promoter of women’s freedom and often-overlooked dimensions of Coloured culture and this is expressed through her use of slang and provocative lyrics. Dope Saint Jude has been described as a “socially conscious advocate for feminism…and gender neutrality in Cape Town” by Okay Africa, with her lyrics and videos complicating distinctions between gender, race and class identities and thereby bringing to the fore issues related to power and inequalities. With a mixture of Cape Coloured slang and ‘Gayle’ (slang used in queer Coloured subcultures) tracks such as “Keep In Touch” are saturated with both metaphors, blatant references and high-powered social commentary on the tensions she sees in society. In doing so, she promotes the multifaceted nature of her own personality, and consequently refracts as a role model for many.

As mentioned earlier, feminist movements are always evolving in response to contemporary experiences and realities. This essay has highlighted some of the preliminary trends, people, as well as online and practical dimensions of an ever-strengthening wave of women moving powerfully in South Africa within the current context of global attention to women’s empowerment. It’s not just about getting female faces out there. It is a process which involves the re-evaluating and reconstructing conceptions and perceptions of womanhood, the female body and women’s role in society through online spaces, women for women collectives and the bending of stereotypes; as well as looking at how these ideas intersect with other social categories. And it’s about love, in every sense of the word.
[Written by Christa Dee & Sindi-Leigh McBride]

2 February 2016