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New ZKM Publication: Digital Imaginaries: African Positions Beyond the Binary

Photography of person in portrait with green glasses and green clothes
© ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

»Digital Imaginaries: Afrikanische Positionen jenseits des Binären / Digital Imaginaries: African Positions Beyond the Binary« was published on 23 March 2021 in German and English by Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld/Berlin. The book presents the results of the three-year cooperative project »Digital Imaginaries« (2018–2021). The project partners were Kër Thiossane and Afropixel Festival in Dakar, Senegal, Wits Art Museum and Fak’ugesi Festival of African Digital Innovation in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the ZKM Karlsruhe. »Digital Imaginaries« investigated digital developments on the African continent by focusing on exhibitions, festivals and performances, seminars, lectures, and artist residencies. The project leader was Richard Rottenburg, curators of the exhibitions in in Dakar, Johannesburg, and Karlsruhe were Julien McHardy, Marion Louisgrand Sylla, Oulimata Gueye, Fiona Rankin-Smith, Tegan Bristow, and Philip Ziegler.

Based on African positions, the texts demonstrate how more diverse and inclusive digital futures can be designed beyond binary opposites.


The close interrelations and frictions between digital imaginaries, technological developments, and complex local conditions are the leitmotivs of the Digital Imaginaries project. »Digital Imaginaries«, which was funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation TURN Fund, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Pro Helvetia, andt he German Research Foundation, works from actual situations in Africa and challenges people to think of manifestations of the digital in a more heterogeneous and global way. The project shows what role African positions play in shaping the digital.

Documents

Press Release

Image - Gallery

  • Photography of person in portrait with green glasses and green clothes
    Digital Imaginaries - African Positions Beyond the Binary, 2021, Cover
    © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
  • You can see two people illuminated by colorful projections. The left person wears fancy glasses and an orange jumpsuit, the right person wears a traditional robe and has an instrument in his hand.
    Marcus Neustetter, Lead the Way – Speculative Scapes. Performance with Lamine Kora Kouyaté and Fatou Cissé. Afropixel #6, Kër Thiossane, Dakar (SN), May 7, 2018.
    © Marcus Neustetter, photo: © Elise Fitte-Duval
  • You can see a person with a smartphone in hand taking a photo of a work of art.
    Digital Imaginaries, opening. Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg (SA), July 24, 2018.
    Photo: © Mark Lewis
  • On display is a canvas on which a picture of a man in a golden frame, surrounded by mountains and numbers as on a cell phone. This is viewed by several people, of whom only the silhouettes are visible.
    Tabita Rezaire, The Song Of The Spheres, 2018. Installation view, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg (SA), 2018.
    © Tabita Rezaire, photo: © Mark Lewis
  • A masked person in a brown robe can be seen. Cables protrude from his head and a white face hovers above him. Behind him are several people and a pile of cables and screens
    Francois Knoetze, Core Dump Karlsruhe, performance. ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, November 16, 2018.
    © Francois Knoetze, © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, photo: Tobias Wootton
  • A rectangular, roofed stage can be seen. Both on it and around it are wooden stools. Around it is a picture of the stage and a picture showing an arrow made of stars
    DK Osseo-Asare & Yasmine Abbas, Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP), Spacecraft_ZKM, 2018. Installation view, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, 2018.
    © DK Osseo-Asare & Yasmine Abbas, © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, photo: Tobias Wootton
  • You can see two yellow patterned banners hanging from the Wnd and converging in central perspective. In the center are four green images.
    Isaac Kariuki, Weaponise the Internet, 2017, and Larry Achiampong, Pan African Flag for the Relic Travellers, 2018. Installation view, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, 2018.
    © Isaac Kariuki, © Larry Achiampong, © ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, photo: Tobias Wootton
  • In a mountainous steppe landscape, a woman who looks like a model sits upright in a sun chair.
    Jamal Nxedlana, Late Leisure: Datamines 3.0, 2019. Photograph (detail)
    © Jamal Nxedlana, photo © the artist
  • Something is being built in a scrap yard: A walk-in square made of metal struts. A builder is squatting in it.
    Test setup of the Spacecraft_ZKM in the Agbogbloshi scrapyard, Accra (GH), 2018.
    © DK Osseo-Asare & Yasmine Abbas, © photo: AMP
  • A woman in close-up in profile. She first looks directly at the viewer and wears a parka. There are two cell phones on the parka and in the parka.
    Isaac Kariuki, Weaponise the Internet, 2017
    © Isaac Kariuki, photo © the artist
  • A woman's arm in close-up. The arm of a denim shirt is recognizable, underneath a longsleeve in which a cell phone is stuck. Then follows the hand, loosened.
    Isaac Kariuki, Weaponise the Internet, 2017
    © Isaac Kariuki, photo © the artist
  • A man in a coat, top hat and with a large orange scarf stands tall in the foreground and looks at the viewer. Behind him is a stream. Around it are quonset huts.
    Maurice Mbikayi, Bilele (Dressing up for the occasion), 2016. Photograph (detail)
    © Courtesy of the Artist and ARTCO Gallery Berlin, photo: © Ashley Walters

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