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womxnifesto
Moratiwa Molema & Shmerah Passchier formed the Afrocyborg VR Collective as an Afro-technofeminist coalition for womanist VR filmmaking. We focus on the technological empowerment of women in VR as a medium in the mode of prosocial filmmaking, in the genre of African Science Fiction. This is a counter-hegemonic genre that generates Afro-cyborg-oppositional-consciousness inspired by Nnedi Okorafor, Obioma Nnaemeka, Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, Florence Okoye, bell hooks, Sheila Sandoval, Judy Wajcman & Donna Haraway.
These fractal self-portraits were made using the Insta360One_X Virtual Reality camera to reflect Haraway’s technofeminist cyborg constructs as prone to playfulness, irony and humour.
This is a is a technopolitical strategy for producing cyborg SF narratives (Haraway 1991).
These images reflect an intersectional aesthetic of multiple, open-ended, “fractured identities” which disrupt the reception of the image in such a way as to cause a visual parallax, to reframe perception & consciousness (Benjamin 2016).
Cyborg feminism resists any one kind of totalising feminism. For this reason we celebrate the multiplicity of the image.
Afrocyborg VR X
curated the Pan-African VR showcase at RapidLion Film Festival in 2021 where the prototypes for
The Cosmic Egg & The Eye of Rre Mutwa premiered for the first time as the lockdown restrictions of
Covid-19 began to ease.
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PRESS: RapidLion follows Tribeca with an electrifying showcase of
pan-African Virtual Reality Films from across the African continent
Afrocyborg curated the Pan-African VR showcase for RapidLion in 2021, saying:
“This technology is designed to help us experience digital narratives by teleporting us into the world of story.
No frames, no squares, no rectangles. You’re there, inside the narrative. This RapidLion VR Pan-African showcase celebrates the many techno-ancestors with the power to beam us into parallel worlds of imagination such as: San cave paintings, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, African modes of orality, mythology, and sage wisdom, helping us share the capacity to reimagine past, present and future narratives that describe our shared African humanity.”
Echoing the writing of AI Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, in his book Closing the Gap – the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa, RapidLion Festival Director Eric Miyeni, says:
“The world has entered The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Africa must not be left behind like it was when all the past three industrial revolutions happened. Through this Africa-wide VR showcase, RapidLion seeks to highlight the importance and necessity for Africa to enter and be a leader in 4IR.”
Through a collaboration with Electric South, AFDA and The Digital Lab Africa network, RapidLion 2021 will showcase the following
VR films for free at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg:
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The Other Dakar by Selly Raby Kane of Dakar in Senegal.
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Spirit Robot by Johnathan Dotse of Accra in Ghana.
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Nairobi Berries by Ngendo Mukki of Nairobi in Kenya.
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The Cosmic Egg by Moratiwa Molema and the New Moon Ensemble from Gaborone, Botswana.
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LeLac by Nyasha Kadandara of Zimbabwe, whose film was shot in Niger, Chad & Cameroon.
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HERE! by Shelley Barry from Johannesburg, South Africa
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Let This Be A Warning by The Nest Collective of Nairobi, Kenya
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The Eye of Rre Mutwa – An Afrocyborg Homage to Credo Vasamazulu Mutwa 1921 – 2020 by Shmerah Passchier & Afrocyborg VR X, Gqebeha, South Africa.
Afrocyborg VR X
showcased The Cosmic Egg & The Eye of Rre Mutwa in a virtual lounge at the Hyde Park cinema for the Open City Art Film programme in 2021.
We thought it was amusing & uncanny to be showing in the cinema next door to the new release of James Bond ;-) the tragic notion of "Bond Girls" ain't exactly our jam yo!
Fak'ugesi Digital Art
Festival 2023
Moratiwa Molema & New Moon staged awesome opening act for
Fak'ugesi
10 Year Anniversary Launch
Forum Creation Africa 2023 Paris, France: 5 -8 October 2023
The Afrocyborg VR Collective travelled full circle returning to Paris in 2023 to show our two Virtual Reality films at the Forum Creation Africa Transmedia & Extended Reality (XR) Film Festival in early October 2023.
Moratiwa Molema & I were the recipients of the Digital Lab Africa Grant & Artist Residency in 2019 when we were last together in Paris for the VR Masters classes, which formed part of the creative practise component of my PhD. I began the PhD in 2017, and at last, this was the final culmination of completing this journey six years later.
Before climbing the plane to Paris to attend Forum Creation Africa and showcase our VR films at our first International Festival, I just handed in the final PhD submission & will graduate on the 11th of December 2023.
Thank you to everyone at Digital Lab Africa, Tshimologong, Fak’ugesi & Creation Africa for your incredible support. We are most grateful! Merci :-)
Our films will go on to show in Brazil next at the TechnoPoetic Becomings Exhibition at the Santa Maria Art Museum, from November 28th to December 7th, 2023.
References:
Benjamin. G 2016. The Cyborg Subject: Reality, Consciousness, Parallax. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Haraway, D. 1985. A Cyborg Manifesto. Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Routledge, New York.
Haraway, D. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. Routledge, New York.
Haraway, D. 1995. Cyborgs and Symbionts: Living Together in the New World Order. The Cyborg Hand Book. Pp xi – 1. Routledge, London.
Haraway, D. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Prickly Paradigm Press, Chicago
Haraway, D. 2016. Staying with the Trouble Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, USA
Marwala, T. 2020. Closing the Gap – The Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa. Pan Macmillan SA. Kindle Edition.
Mutu, C, V. 1965. Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs and Religious Beliefs. Canon Gate, London
Sandoval, C. 2000. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Wajcman, J. 2004. Technofeminism. Kindle Edition. Cambridge, Polity Press.
hooks, b. 1992. The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators. In Black Looks, Race and Representation, Chapter 7, 115-133. Boston, South End Press.
Nnaemeka, O. 2004. Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 29(2): 357-385.
Ogunyemi. C.O. 2006. African Womanism. Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English (1985). In Phillips, L. (ed). The Womanist Reader, Chapter 2, 21-36. New York, Routledge.
Okoye, F. 2014. Does Africa Dream of Androids? Disability and the global South, 2014. Open Access, 1(1): 64-84.