As a digital innovation festival which hopes to encourage young digital makers to be leaders in technological spheres, the visual identity for the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival was born out of the energy that students were emitting while Wits lecturers Tegan Bristow and Christo Doherty were building their vision for the festival. Teaming up with Vincent Truter and illustrator Michale Tymbios, lightning bolts, clenched fists and illustrations mimicking wires in a circuit board are the visual signifiers that have been carried over as the festival has expanded each year. This pays homage to the spirit of youth and the cultures on technology that continuously develop within different city contexts. I interviewed Vincent and Tegan to explore how they have translated this into a visual identity that is easily recognizable and disperses this electric energy.
When you first started Fak’ugesi, what was your thinking in how you wanted to visually represent ideas around digital innovation? How did you carry this through in the 2016 and 2017 posters?
VT: At the time when Fak’ugesi started we sensed a strong political and revolutionary climate on the Wits campus. There was a lot of very political and revolutionary iconography on student and other posters and stickers. This sense of a revolutionary mind-set would later culminate in the Fees Must Fall campaign.
We drew on the beginnings of this energy and started looking at poster designs and icons from the past revolutionary movements. Drawing on a Russian constructivist print style we developed the hand as the central metaphor, and secondly we brought in the lightning bolt – to metaphorically represent what Fak’ugesi does and means – to set things alight, to strike with a bolt of energy. We did not want to take the route of bringing the tech element foreground in a kind of sci-fi way, rather we rooted it in a very human form, with a revolutionary metaphor and crisp clear iconography. As you know the fist has also been a strong symbol in SA for Amandla and associated with many revolutionary sentiments. We added a circuit board texture that celebrated the digital. The founding imagery was developed in collaboration with illustrator Michale Tymbios. So the main ingredients were born. The human hand, the lightning bolt, the circuitry that acts like veins. Its energetic, bold, and always a sharp stab to the senses.
The first illustration was inspired by the cut-out and mis-print aesthetic of Saul Bass. The second years use of multiple feminine hands was inspired by hands at the Fees Must Fall rallies holding up phones to document the event. This year the hands were inspired by a softer set of hands giving, sharing.
The colour palette is also always a mixture of a tonal set of hues with a really wack uncomfortable colour thrown in. It’s actually not a very easy palette on the eye – and we love it for that reason. It needs to agitate a bit.
The slogans you have used on the posters over the years have been “Rise Digital Africa”, “Afro Tech Riot” and “Brave Tech Hearts Beat as One”. Would you like to share a bit about the thinking behind these slogans and how they tie into the visual language you have used to symbolize these?
VT: We wanted to keep the conceptual and thematic language uncomplicated and direct. No fluffy highfalutin phrases that try and say so much and end up saying so little. In the first year we actually developed a type of copy-driven praise poem to add the sense of movement and pace through the language. This was then distilled in a short punchy slogan “Rise Digital Africa”. Like a great rally slogan in a march, the Fak’ugesi slogan should incite a sense of energy and a feeling of action.
TB: Each slogan is almost like a challenge that we pose with the Festival each year. We iterate this every year, drawing on how people are working with the space of technology and culture. In 2015 there was a lot of focus in the media on what was being called the “Digital Revolution” in Africa, we were skeptical about this and wanted to ask questions about where that power really existed, so the “Rise Digital Africa” and the old use of the black power first came into being.
After that the hand and the fist stayed in our iconography. In 2016 I used “Afro Tech Riot” to reflect the really important student upraising around #feesmustfall, which pretty much ran from Twitter and was largely led by strong female figures. Therefore rather than have one fist, we introduced three hands: a fist – to continue the tradition of uprising; a hand pointing up to the gods – representing spirituality; and a hand holding the phone with the slogan “Afro Tech Riot” on it – to reference how the revolution was being led in twitter and via images and videos. These hands where all very feminine, with soft hands, jewellery and flowing garments.
In 2017 I wanted to represent a more global engagement with technology. 2017 was the year that Trump won his US election through targeted social media, it’s is also the year that followed a major global recession. I felt that all the kids that had started amazing things with tech and innovation in 2017, where still out there alone and with not really enough engagement and support. So “Brave Tech Hearts Beat As One” was to ask questions about unity and the role of supporting and collaborating with each other through difficult times. Our hands therefore became supporting and protecting, holding this beating technological heart – a very brave heart.
The slogans and icons you have used evoke thoughts around revolution, taking a stand, courage and being heard. Was this intentional? How does this relate to the direction you see African digital innovation going?
VT: Africa has the ability to use technology to leapfrog through developmental challenges, to use its revolutionary energy to break down ineffective systems and really envision and create new ways of being. This spirit is at the heart of our festival and innovation in Africa.
TB: Yes absolutely, we all know that Africa is culturally disenfranchised in the globalised information economy. The slogans act to challenge this and also allow us to claim our own knowledges – cultural, subaltern and insurrectionary.
For the fourth time in succession the Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival runs from the 6th until the 16th of September in Johannesburg’s Braamfontein. The Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation has once more conceived to offer an interactive space for creative intercommunions amongst Africans all over the continent. Launched as a “celebration of digital technology, art and culture”, the festival is intended to embolden its audience to reconsider their eyes for digital technology on the one hand, as well as a way to expand their creative and cultural working procedures with(in) digital innovations on the other hand.
Using the “Upgrade To Brave” theme, Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation 2017 embodies a ten day long festival platform – located in Braamfontein’s recently envisioned tech hub Tshimologong on Juta Street – for inter artistic exchange between creative minds of different directions to (re)create an innovative collaboration of artful creativity and sustainable technology. In the course of this, it proposes numerous events around exhibitions and installations, workshops and talks, performances and parties. Employing favoured events of the previous years, this year’s Fak’ugesi entrenches furthermore new inspiring projects.
The Fak’ugesi Digital African Residency (from the 14th of August until the 16th of September) annually hosts young digital artists all over the African continent as its residents. Supported by its partner Pro Helvetia Johannesburg with the ANT Fund, it invites creative individuals to exhibit their work and participate in further events like workshops and talks in order to both explore and represent the Festival’s theme through professional eyes. This year’s residents are Komborarai Chapfika and Dananayi Muwanijwe both from Zimbabwe and Julia Hanjo from Namibia.
In partnership with British Council ConnectZA, Fak’ugesi Festival inhabits a Digital Africa Exhibition, running from the 8th until the 16th of September. Aimed to emphasizes the relevance of digital arts through over the African Continent, it focuses on New Media and Technology Art made by Africans for Africans.
Likewise as a first, Fak’ugesi 2017 adds the one-day long Fak’ugesi Conference (14th of September – 9am until 5pm) as an inherent part of its program. On the basis of the thematic framework “The Future of Creative Innovation and Technology” the conference – led by diverse professionals of technical and digital innovation spheres – majors on relevant questions of the development of artistic and technological transdisciplinary in Africa, in order to prioritize the importance of collaborative work even across national and vocational borders.
Intended as a thematic access to the Festival’s theme, The Making Weekend, taking place from the 8th to the 10th of September, allures the visitors to practically experience the thrilling diversity of technological innovations through offering a variegated workshop program such as ‘Making A Talking Roboter’ (8th of September – 10am until 12pm) with IBM Research Africa, which – as the name suggests – encounters to create a pronunciation skilled Robot. Including ‘DIY Game Controllers’ (9th of September – 10am until 3pm) with Bear Season teaching to design individual controllers of various materials. Conclusively, The Making Weekend’s aim is to improve already technically accomplished skills as well as to help (yet) non-technical user to delve deeper in technological features.
In addition, Fak’ugesi 2017 includes its annual Market Hack (9th of September – 10am until 4:30pm), as one of its favourites event. The Market Hack – in cooperation with South African Maker Collective and Accenture Liquid Labs – is a daylong annexation of Braamfontein’s popular Neighborgoods Market – connected with various playful activities and games around electronic and digital applications.
As a further project, Fak’ugesi 2017 presents – once again in partnership with British Council’s ConnectZA – ColabNowNow, a collaborative project aimed to combine different digital works to an interdisciplinary level. Proceeding from the 6th until the 16th of September, ColabNowNow engages 10 artist as well as 5 digital storytellers, picked from diverse African states from the East, South and West and the United Kingdom, to flourish inter artistic networking connections.
Fak’ugesi Beats Lab (7th until 16th of September) – as a weeklong boot camp curated by Weheartbeat – builds a space for various artistic minds of technological, musical and filmic spheres to cooperatively work together in order to amalgamate unique developments and creations. As a clou, all upcoming results will be seen at the Fak’ugesi’s final event, Fak’ugesi Beats Bloc Party on the 16th of September, which embodies the crowning glory of those 10 days, supported by both national and international musical highlights such as Masego, Nonku Phiri, Petite Noir and much more.
Moreover, from the 13th to the 16th of September, Fak’ugesi features A MAZE. Since 2012 in cooperation with Goethe Institute Johannesburg connects both international and national developers, entrepreneurs and artist of the gaming and playful media sector. A MAZE functions as a networking platform for gamers all over the world to connect through various projects around the thematic framework of virtual reality, such as digital installations, game designs and much more.
Since 2014 Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival, founded by Prof Christo Doherty and Tegan Bristow from WITS Digital Arts including Prof Barry Dwolatzky from the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), initially created a platform to mobilize Braamfontein’s Tshimologong Innovation Precinct. Nowadays this has since evolved to celebrate the relevance of technological innovation and creativity by and for Africa’s youth. Harnessing a foundation that births a platform for future African digital innovative leaders to explore and leave their footprint in the world of technology. According to its name – Fak’ugesi” – a Zulu expression for “put on the electricity” let’s put the future development of Africa’s technological front into Africans hands, let’s turn on the young minds.
For further information about the Festival in detail check out their website.
The category digital art includes a wide variety of artistic practices. Digital artist and curator Jepchumba describes this form of art as encompassing artwork whose production and presentation uses digital technology as an essential part of the creative process.
Post African Futures, referring to an exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in 2015, and used in the title of a special issue of Technoetic Arts, is a term that has gained significance when discussing the work of digital art from Africa. Following on from Tegan Bristow’s research focusing on South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, the term is aimed at highlighting the aesthetic mechanisms and critical engagements that stem from what she calls “cultures of technology” in Africa (2014: 169). The ‘post’ in Post African Futures is an invite to see past the immediate links that American and European critics ascribed to African aesthetic practices with technology, particularly those who simply assume that this is a version of African American Afrofuturism (Bristow 2014). Some African artists have been influenced by the mechanisms of Afrofuturism, however, Bristow points out the need to investigate how these mechanisms are being re-explored and what the intention is of African artists in choosing to engage with aesthetics similar to those of Afrofuturism, while at the same time stating that Afrofuturism does not necessarily define what it is they are doing with their work (Bristow 2013). Bristow has emphasized the need to explore uses of technology as an “embedded cultural phenomenon that has very particular aesthetic implications” (2014: 168).
In thinking about this, I had an interview with Jepchumba about her work, her relationship with the digital and the platform that she founded, African Digital Art.
Jepchumba, ‘My heart is in my Head’, 2016
Tell our readers about your own digital art practice – how has your own work evolved, what are the kinds of themes you enjoy working on, where has most of the inspiration for your own work come from?
I primarily have grown up in between spaces, and as a result I have always sought a home. The digital world has always felt like a home to me. For a long time the space between me and a monitor felt comfortable both creatively and personally. Through African Digital Art I came to realize that not only did the digital space allow me to explore such a range of artistry, it has led me to realize that I am a collector.
At heart I am a curator, a role that I avoided for a long time. I see this role spill into my own personal creative practice. Technology allows you to participate within multi mediums simultaneously. You can easily be a digital archivist/visual/audio/interactive story teller all at once.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on the future.
I feel as though we are living in a critical time before Africa looks and thinks of itself completely differently. But it is one of those things you wonder whether it is a critical time or if everyone has always felt this way. Well statistically we have an extremely young continent compared to everywhere else in the world. So in many ways I am interested in having conversations with that generation.
I hope to create work that would give them some reference of the world and questions we had at this time and bring some awareness to some of the conflicts that we had with ourselves.
Where did the idea for African Digital Art come from? How do you like to describe the platform? How has the platform evolved from its inception?
I began African Digital Art because I was told that digital art in Africa did not exist. This was about 8 or 9 years ago, so that is eons in online history.
I found the lack of awareness people had online about what we were capable of to be outstanding. At a time where we came to understand the importance of content I wanted to leave a sort of digital imprint of what we were all working on online. I guess I was afraid that we would start to believe that there was no digital art in Africa because we wouldn’t be represented online. The site’s function was purely archival. African Digital Art was not meant to be a perfect representation of contemporary African art but rather designed to inspired artists and creatives to engage in the world of digital art.
Jepchumba, ‘Boundaries’, 2016
How do you see your African Digital Art in terms of being a platform that allows various artists from the continent being able to share and archive their work on their own terms? Do you see this as offering a form of digital decolonising?
Wow. I have never thought of African Digital Art as a form of digital decolonizing. But I did make a conscious effort that I wanted to keep things simple. Let the work speak for itself and always highlight or showcase the artist by giving them the opportunities to speak for themselves. So the site is mainly visual, I rarely write because I find myself afraid to speak for an artist or label them or misrepresent them. I have experienced this misrepresentation as an African artist myself. So I hope at the very least the audience of African Digital Art will be curious enough to directly reach out to artists themselves.
Africa is often thought of as ‘one big country’. Tell our readers about the importance of recognizing and giving light to the different digital practices or cultures that have been founded and evolved in different cities on the continent.
I used to spend so much time arguing that Africa was not a country. I quickly realized that these arguments were mostly done outside of Africa. So I stopped. I am not particularly interested in having that conversation because I do not think it is necessary. Google is ‘free’ there is too much evidence out there for you to see Africa’s diversity and we are barely scratching the surface.
What I am truly interested in is to give artists and creators a reference for them to engage with. My work through African Digital Art is to provide resources, tools, ideas, connections, opportunities to artists who would be interested in the possibilities of creative technology. So for me it is essential to highlight and recognize the diversity of digital practices and African digital culture in order for us to prepare a new generation that will be at the global center stage in the advancement of technology, culture and ideology.
With most people on the continent being cellphone users, how do you think this has an effect on the way in which digital art is consumed on an everyday basis vs in the traditional gallery space?
Enough already with Africa’s cellphone usage! We have a tendency to fetishize technological objects. But I would advice you to think a different way. Yes it is true, there was a cellphone revolution in Africa that propelled us to the internet. But can we move past this, because technology is. Today we are having conversations about algorithms that control group think, artificial intelligence, humans embedding machines into their biology, the homogenization of expressions of culture and ideology on the internet and other huge themes. This is the truly exciting space to think of digital art in Africa. The traditional art spaces in Africa have never really work because they were foreign implants. We must not limit our thinking about art and our role in it in the confines of white cubed spaces. This is why this field is so exciting there are new opportunities for us to participate in art that were never available to us. I would encourage people to start thinking and stepping waaaaaaaaay outside the box.
There is often a conflation of the terms ‘Black’, ‘African’ and ‘Afro’. How do you view these identifying terms, specifically in relation to art? What are some of the recent conversations around these terms? How do you like to describe your own work when thinking about these terms?
This is such a big question. One that I have struggled with since the minute I bought the domain africandigitalart.com. I sometimes ask myself why couldn’t I have just called the site Digital Art and then just feature African artists.
“Africa” has become one big internet logo. It is synonymous with so many things and it is also not very clearly defined. I find this hazy muddle to be sometimes effective but dangerous. When we conflate “black, African, Afro” we can see, on one hand, a true exercise of digital pan Africanism, where you see diverse cultures who identify strongly within one identity. On the other hand, the “black, African,Afro-ism “can lead you to be pulled into different agenda’s, ideologies and contexts that you did not sign up for. This is even more disastrous , when there are large scale inequities in how much content is produced and shared in certain parts of the world.
The majority of African cultural websites are not produced within Africa. As a result the online space is able to facilitate anyone to become a global African cultural director. One can easily influence what is considered to be African, and through extension what is considered to be ‘Black’ and ‘Afro’
Ugh. this is a tough question. I do not know I have a direct answer.
Digital art from various artists on the continent has been associated with Afrocentrism. This has caused a lot of debate and frustration for some artists. What is your opinion on this? What are some of the other terms that you feel offer an understanding of art from the continent outside of this framework?
I completely understand this dilemma and I am also pulled into it. African Digital Art was actually just a descriptive term, digital art from Africa. And somehow when Africa is added to the mix it is very easy to be labelled and tagged in a certain way.
A few years ago I participated in an exhibition, Post African Futures, curated by Tegan Bristow. The exhibition was an attempt on expanding the definition of African digital practices. Not only were digital artist being pulled into the Afrocentrist label they were also being labelled as Afrofuturists. Digital artists were invited to use digital technologies as a means of resisting cultural predomination.
It is important for us to develop a broader way of thinking by encouraging growth within the creative sector in Africa. We will be able to provide nuanced conversations if we have more African artists participating in the space.
Jepchumba, ‘Sleepless’, 2012
There has been a lot of discussion around the difficulties in displaying and selling digital art within traditional gallery spaces. What are some of the conversations you are involved in or have heard/read about that tease out these difficulties? What are some of the attempts to re-think traditional art display and selling that you think could be built on for solutions?
I would argue that digital art in Africa was never meant to be within traditional gallery spaces. I would invite digital practitioners to think creatively about other models of financially supporting their practice. Most of African art institutions and galleries are funded and supported by the west, most of those institutions are seeing their budgets cut. This is trickling down to African art spaces. I would direct artists to think about creating experiences rather than objects to sell.
As a digital artist and a curator I have reframed my thinking on this. I am not necessarily interested in selling digital artifacts or objects but rather I am interested in creating experiences that people will support financially. We also need to invest in spaces. Spaces that will be centered around education and radical expression.
Ultimately, as a digital artist you now have the ability to control, the work that you produce and also the financial models that will enable you to support yourself. This is an exorbitant amount of pressure but it is the times that we live in now. Worldwide, no one really has any clue to remain sustainable in the arts and creative industry. But we have no choice to figure it out through trail and error.
Are there any particular artists, movements or platforms that stand out for you at the moment?
Yes. I have been mesmerized by the evangelical christian movement in Africa. I think it is one of the movements that is largely ignored by the often secularized art industry. My obsession came because I realized that the church remains Africa’s greatest cultural influencer. Mega churches across the continent have become leading innovators in the digital arts sector. They produce large scale digital content, large scale crowdfunding, they offer digital healing and digital materials that is spread throughout Facebook and Whatsapp. They are also very well funded institutions often with entire production companies at their disposal. I find this absolutely fascinating and I hope that it is talked about more rather than just ridiculed by our own biases.
Anything else you would like to mention about your own practice and African Digital Art?
I started VJiing. It is the worst term ever. I am looking for an alternative term because I cannot come to terms with calling myself that. So please find me on twitter or instagram with a better term. Or just say hi. Also if you are digital artist yourself please make yourself known to us we would love to get to know you.
“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”.
