IQHAWE ISSUE 12: THE FAK'UGESI 2021 ISSUE

IQHAWE x FAK’UGESI 12 | 2021

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FEATURES: dillion phiri Nandi Dlepu Wenawedwa Mamdumane Thapelo Keetile ITTHYNK Gaming Solutions & Ludique Works Sharp Lee Xabiso Vili & Sonwabo Valashiya Edward Lobo Nyambura M. Waruingi Mpho Makutu

IN COLLABORATION WITH Fak’ugesi Digital Innovation Festival

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e have been following the Fak’ugesi digital innovation festival for a couple of years now and by following we mean stalking the festival’s creators and wondering how on earth we could possibly contribute and be a part of it. Fast forward 2021 we are commissioned to create a specially curated issue for the festival, needless to say that this was an alignment as defined by Twitter standards.

Through the forward thinking vision of the festival’s curator dillion phiri, the festival has taken a more inclusive and interactive approach that gives it a unique and exciting representation of the festival content.

The way in which the festival places a specific focus on merging the gap that exists between a cross pollination across African countries and bringing about collaborative measures that help us build as one. We are absolutely grateful to have been part of the experience and doing our bit to contribute towards the “build coz you have to” festival theme. The festival has incorporated a beautiful and well curated experience that introduced us to new forms of digital music as curated by Nandi Dlepu, immersive media from across the content and being fascinated by digital innovation that is in our backyards. All we can say is that we are excited about the future of African digital innovation and can not wait to be at the forefront of it’s documentation.

- Editor-in-chief Pretty Mangena - Vice-Editor Anastatia Nkhuna

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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:

Founder & Editor-in-chief Pretty Renae Mangena Vice-editor & Creative director Anastatia Nkhuna Head graphic designer & Illustrator Onti Seroalo Head photographer Thapelo Kekana Content producer & Art director Ntokozo Mabuza Content producer Unam Ntsababa Copywriter Motshidisi Mokoena

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FAK’UGESI FESTIVAL

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SOCIAL SCULPTOR AND FESTIVAL CURATOR

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DIGITAL MUSIC

Fak’Ugesi Festival 08

The story of dillion phiri 12

Nandi Dlepu 16 Wenawedwa Mamdumane 20

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2021 POSTER COMPETITION WINNER

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GAMING DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

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DIGITAL ART

Thapelo Keetile 24

ITTHYNK Gaming Solutions & Ludique Works

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Sharp Lee 30 Xabiso Vili & Sonwabo Valashiya 34 Edward Lobo 38

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IMMERSIVE MEDIA

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TMS MAKER CULTURE SPACE

Nyambura M. Waruingi 42

Mpho Makutu 46 7

FAK’UGESI FESTIVAL

What we learnt from the opening talks Fak’ugesi is an annual hybrid/digital innovation event that focuses on the interface of art and technology which includes; art, gaming, animation, and immersive media are all featured at the festival. dillion phiri claims he was overly ambitious in wanting to include all those sub-sectors in one festival within in ten days.

It commenced on the 15th of October and ends on the 24th, and everyday something exciting is happening. Because of the COVID, the festival was planned to be online, like last year’s one, but when the country’s restrictions were lifted to Level 1, this allowed for an opening that included a human experience.

FAK’UGESI’S VISION They aspire to be Africa’s top digital creative festival, one that nurtures digital growth and development and, eventually, one that celebrates and showcases innovation. They want to promote inclusivity, transformation, and collaboration while

centrering African people. dillion phiri, the festival’s new curator, who succeeds Dr Tegan Bristow, says he came up with the #BuildCozYouHaveTo theme because he knows that creatives create from the soul, without comprehending their engagement in society or knowing how to participate in activities. According to him, Thapelo captured the theme’s thinking by basing it on Johannesburg and its fast-paced lifestyle, and seeing how everyone is interconnected.

Wits, Tshimologong Precinct, AFD, IFAS, Telkom, Digital Lab Africa, and A.R.A. were among the festival’s major sponsors.

Lesley Donna Williams, the CEO of Tshimologong Precinct spoke about how the COVID pandemic encouraged them to think, collaborate, and overcome digital exhaustion in order to generate creative solutions for the promotion of African digital creativity. Because they had to establish the festival without any pioneers before them, the theme resonated with her, they decided to join together in a deliberate

manner and ‘beat with one heart.’ What’s vital and unique, she adds, is presenting the multiplicity of African aesthetics and narratives. The pandemic ushered in new means of dynamically communicating with an audience. The festival’s ultimate goal was to provide a platform that stimulates human contact.

2021 was a year of change and transformation, with a focus on building a s e n s e o f c o m m u n i t y, e n h a n c i n g collaboration, partnerships, and community strengthening. The epidemic has flipped the narratives of where Africa stands in discourses of science, technology, development, and innovation by collapsing geographies. Fak’Ugesi is a festival that emphasizes academic teaching, learning, research, and other activities. The Wits School of Art was quite involved, and dillion drew all of the sub-sectors together into one. They constructed a functioning digital gallery for the festival, promising that attendees should “expect the unexpected.”

Written by Unam Ntsababa

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SOCIAL SCULPTOR

THE STORY OF

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SOCIAL SCULPTOR AND FAK’UGESI CURATOR “I remember hearing about dillion phiri for the first time between the years 2015 - 2016 when the award-winning young and African creative network, Creative Nestlings, had just begun in Cape Town - a must attend event. As someone who is motivated and affected by doers and makers, dillion phiri’s journey is incredibly captivating to me. When our conversation began I was welcomed by the soothing sounds of Kanye from his recent album, Donda, and I just knew it, man! We bonded, as all ‘Ye stans do over his genius, and I knew this interview was going to be incredible.” Unam Ntsababa

THE BEGINNING Similar to a few other creatives, dillion is continually inspired by his upbringing and surroundings. A product of two creatives, inheriting gifts from his maternal and paternal roots, creative brilliance was inevitable for this young man. With the prospect of being given independence once he obtained his degree in Business IT, he went on to work for Cape and Tourism to develop the IT department. Her hopes for him were to live a free life of exploration, despite being refugees in South Africa, and not have his immigrant status serve as a constant reminder to him. This job piqued his interest as he began to wonder why people were flocking to Cape Town from the UK and America to experience the creative experiences the bustling city had to offer - he knew that what they weren’t seeing were black creatives, the true trailblazers, and this is where his passion for creating communities, building homes for creatives began.

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How has fatherhood shaped or influenced your general approach to life?

Being a father has really helped me to ground myself. If I hadn’t done that, I would have been all over the place. Having a child really shaped my thinking about the world.

I want to make the world a better place because they exist, they have to inherit something. In my bio I put ‘father’ first before anything else, because it dictates what I work on, how I work on it, like, will my kids be impressed? Will my kids be cool about it? You know what I mean? So it kind of helps with that.

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Why do you feel that spaces like the Creative Nestlings, and The Hive are pivotal for fresh South African art as a basis of building a sense of community?

Spaces are critical to any community, and any creation process. It’s imperative for creatives to be able to practice and connect with each other, that’s my personal philosophy of life in my work. Everywhere I go, I have to create a safe space for creators to connect and share resources, opportunities and knowledge. Individually, we can’t do too much, but collectively, our voices are louder, and we’re able to really have serious conversations with people with equal footing. The current challenge facing the creative industry is the unequal support between ourselves, funders and brands, there’s no sense of community, or a space for that to happen. That’s critical for me as a creative basically.

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What inspired you to join the Fak’Ugesi team, and what new things do you plan to bring to the festival?

The framework of the festival has always been anchored around these pillars; animation, gaming, immersive media, all that kind of stuff, but I think the foundation of it - family in the creative industry, is where I want to make the most impact.

By being a part of the creative aspect of the festival, I will be able to get the general creatives to participate in the festival by attending, creating work, and learning about technology. The festival is about creatives using technology for creation and production, and that’s my favorite part of it, coming into the best of all our attention to access for young black creators in the creative space. We’re brilliant as creatives, and that’s why we need to be at the forefront of everything.

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How would you describe the role of an artist?

We are the mirror, we are the good looking glass, but we are also reflecting what’s wrong with society. We’re providing solutions and opportunities, a fun, but necessary challenge.

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What’s your favorite thing about collaborating with and nurturing young talent?

My favourite thing has to be the amazing ideas and naivety. I’m still young myself, 32? I think that’s considered young in South Africa. Younger creatives are not worried too much about a lot of things, we’re all about creation, I like that. I also like being able to learn from others, while feeding into the process. There is a willingness to learn and listen, well most of the time, I just wish there was more space for collaboration among different creative generations. For instance, I want to rebuild Creative Nestlings and have been trying to find a young creative to run it, but it’s quite hard to find a young creative who understands the past, present and the future. But overall, I really love working with young creatives. It’s so much fun.

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Any advice for young creatives?

Not necessarily advice, just my two cents.

If you want to be a great creative, be the best researcher, stay inquisitive about what’s happening in the world. Research is where the money is, it just requires a bit of work. Google is your friend - use that to your advantage.

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“Having a child really shaped my thinking about the world, I want to make the world a better place because they exist.”

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What is your vision and hope for South African art and its future?

I hope to play a role in helping shape the future of our art through the building of more galleries and spaces for creatives across Africa. We need more spaces where creators can create, to just walk in and just feel free to sit down and just explore, a space where to experiment and explore their creativity. I think Tshimologong has the potential to be a really good conduit for that because they’re a tech-precinct, if you are a creative reading this, you should go check it out. My biggest dream for the next ten years, atleast, is to work towards building 54 spaces, one in every country, across the African continent for Creative Nestlings. I also feel that we can do better in creating opportunities for more creatives, we tend to recycle faces and talent, and I think we should be doing better to showcase people that are on the ground, doing amazing work - not necessarily just for clients, but for impact. That’s the most important thing for me.

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Let’s talk about money.

The creative industry is facing quite a challenge with money. Creative work is also a service, whenever we create, we are working, creating value for somebody else and that value should be reciprocated monetarily. There is also a huge need for transparency, in a case where there is no budget, send that invoice to indicate how much it would cost, they should know what your fee is no matter what, to avoid having things, especially your time, being taken for granted. I sometimes feel that as creatives, we underestimate how much we’re with, and that needs to stop. For instance, if you charge R5k for a service and you get compensated with a voucher, then double its value. You can’t pay rent with that, but you can stretch it. We should start training ourselves on how to have conversations about money and be very blatant about it.

Interview by Unam Ntsababa IG: @dillionsphiri

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ell known for the creation of authentic, wholesome experiences and content curation, Nandi Dlepu is a multifaceted creative, well-versed in business, communications, entertainment and the production. Through her agency Mamakashaka, she continues to build spaces that operate on the mantra to inspire , empower and entertain which lead to her creating ground-breaking platforms such as Feel Good Series, Bloom, Pantone Sundays and Umi. She joins the Fak’ugei Festival to curate the digital music touchpoint with her expertise.

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Please tell us a bit more about Mamakashaka and what she does?

My name is Nandi Dlepu, the founder of Mamakashaka agency, a creative agency rooted in inspiring through everything we do,whether it’s empowering, or entertaining. The agency has birthed platforms like the Feel Good Series, created for emerging musical talent, Pantone Sundays, a space for emerging fashion brands to express themselves, and lastly, Bloom that seeks to inspire, empower, and nurture creative female entrepreneurs and freelancers.

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meaningful, empowering ways to explore how artists are making money on their music, how they are marketing their music, and how they are creating sustainable careers. So I am really excited about the types of conversations that we’ve also curated for the programme.

That will not just be tied into the definition of digital music, but be meaningful and engaging.

“MY ‘WHY’

What role will you be playing in the festival?

I’m joining dillion S. phiri to contribute in facilitating the digital music touchpoint for Fak’ugesi. The festival has a handful of focus areas, digital music being one of them amongst digital art, immersive media, digital animation, maker culture and gaming. Traditionally, the festival has focused on one or a handful of these touch points, and for this year’s phygital experience, the curator is dedicated to doing something that represents each pillar.

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WAS TO MEANINGFULLY INSPIRE,

What does digital music mean, what is it about?

EMPOWER

To share context. Firstly, when I got the brief, and dillion told me about the digital music touch point, my reaction was, what isn’t digital music? I think often at the offset of a particular innovation we name things without realising how limiting these phrases are.

But for us, digital music is really about the intersection of music and technology. That’s how the festival is defining it. It’s about exploring what music means. We will be doing this by celebrating, profiling and featuring work made from Africa. We want to tell the stories around the creation and distribution of music as well as showcasing experimental formats. In summary, it’s the intersection of music and technology.

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Using this year’s theme of ‘build coz you have to’ how have you curated the digital music sessions, and what are your expectations of how it will unfold?

I’ve tried to find artists, producers and DJ’s who have experience in building music and have layered sets. For example, we have Nonku phiri and as many know, she’s someone that builds a soundscape as she’s performing. So we just thought about people, and tried to match them to more than just the theme because they live in the intersection of music and technology. The sessions are built to provide a lot more clarity on digital music, also looking at the theme in it’s entrepreneurial element of building the panel discussions where we will be discussing how we can empower independent artists.

In addition, we have a panel discussion that features the Head of Southern and East Africa, Jade Leaf, from tunecore which is a digital music distribution company. These discussions will provide

& ENTERTAIN.” Q

How has your experience in business, communication, entertainment and production shaped your thinking around exploring digital music, looking at the infinite possibilities of innovation?

I’ll speak specifically on the work that I’ve done regarding music experiences...for instance, Feel Good Series. I think in my four years of building the platform, for me as a person and a small company, my reason was to meaningfully inspire, empower and entertain. Those are the pillars of everything I do, it has to hit those notes.

The Feel Good Series aims to understand how to meaningfully empower artists, we’ve specifically chosen to be a platform for emerging artists, and that comes with the responsibility to immerse ourselves in innovation and in practice that will contribute to the empowerment of the artists we feature. Through the intersection of music and technology we can

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amplify their stories and help them break out. It’s been an interesting journey that has led to partnerships with tunecore, and added definition to how we build independent, yet sustainable stories around the creation and distribution of music as well as showcasing experimental formats. In summary, it’s the intersection of music and technology.

“...WE’VE SPECIFICALLY CHOSEN TO BE A PLATFORM FOR EMERGING ARTISTS...”

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You’ve done a great job at empowering young artists through the platforms you’ve created, Fak’ugesi has a strong mandate of doing the same but now focusing it on the digital music offering, how are you powering up opportunities for artists where they can interact with technology and culture?

We have tried to keep a handful of our featured artists as part of a full journey for us. We want to give them exposure to the different pillars of the festival whilst providing means for them to network. Nonku phiri is a really good example because she kicks us off at the launch on the 14th of October 2021 with a DJ set, then returns to a creation panel discussion on the 23rd of October 2021 that I will be hosting.

So I think even how we’ve chosen to curate the programme, we’ve looked at having wholesome journeys with some of our artists, you know, and I think that’s a really interesting way of integrating them, and immersing them into our programme with hope that it inspires them to do more. For myself and dillion, even when we are having

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conversations with people we book for the programme, we urge them to plug in and register for the full festival to build engagement around the theme of digital innovation. No matter what pillar you are creating in, it’s always good to be aware of the full programme and be fully engaged, and that’s part of how we aim to empower.

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What does the ecosystem of digital music look like economically, socially and culturally?

From my background with Feel Good Series, it doesn’t seem sustainable for a lot of artists. That’s why we have many multifaceted creatives because they have to make it in other ways, consequently, an ecosystem that functions well shows that passion is sustainable.

That is why I corroborated for the inclusion of TuneCore, they are a digital distribution leader. This is a good theme to explore especially for Fak’ugesi it will definitely bring it forward.

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Music is an expression of beauty and emotion that is understood universally by all cultures in our societies.

In what ways can music made in our continent be amplified in games and digital music experiences, and why is that important?

This speaks to exposure, and how we are using digital technology to get our music out there. It’s about creating moments, something similar to what I do when I create these experiences through Mamakashaka. The focus is on extending what is available to us digitally through marketing, where you know that you need to create content, plan a digital marketing strategy and understand the language, with the intention to end up on these collaborative platforms. This is why I am excited about this year’s festival because you have people who wouldn’t ordinarily privy into each other’s industries, now having the opportunity to do so. I enjoy the full breadth of the festival and I can expect some level of collaboration.

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As someone with experience in running a marketing agency, what gaps do you see in the ownership and distributions of digital music and can it be bridged?

There is a huge gap, and part of the festival’s mandate is to build the bridge. We have to, but moreover, Fak’ugesi is an annual festival with a lot of exposure. For example, women in music focused platforms are constantly engaging with the music community on how they should be empowering themselves, distributing, licensing and using tech tools.

Interview by Anastatia Nkhuna @mamakashaka

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uch like any other industry the digital music industry has gone through great lengths at the beginning of the century and has paved the way for the development of innovative models for legal online distribution, we sat with events curator, DJ and lyricist Wenawedwa Madumane to find out the importance of digital music and the role it plays in redefining what music has been known as in the past, and her role in the Fakugesi festival.

Please introduce yourself and share an overview of what you do and what you’ve done.

I am Wenawedwa Madumane and I am a singer, an events curator, DJ and a lyricist.

Aside from my singing and DJing and curation abilities, I’m also a healer, a trained sangoma (amongst many other things).

How are you curating the events for Fak’ugesi and which ones could you mention that you are specifically focusing on?

I’ve been focusing more on the physical events, and obviously the digital as we are helping them in that aspect too, but with the physical I’m more on the ground and I think that’s what I’m enjoying the most, being on the ground and seeing how things come together. So that’s mainly been the focus particularly for the opening evening that we had on the 14th. Following that we had some events from Friday to Sunday, Friday’s event was Beats and Bytes, on Saturday we had the digital music event which was led by Nandi, Mamakashaka, and we also curated a DJing 101 workshop as Soft Grapes, and then Sunday was the closing dinner.

So those were the physical ones that I was directly fully registered to do.

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How are you looking to showcase the digital aspect of music in the event, are we going to be seeing a digital installation alongside the performances and if so, how have you been curating that section?

In terms of the digital aspects there have mostly been talks more than anything.

We did have exhibitions where artists showcased their work in a digital gallery, which was super amazing. In terms of the physical events, there was an element of streaming which gave people on the other end a chance to see the work, which was awesome as it showed that technology is actually needed. So that was an interesting bridge, from a person who was so used to physical events to now finding myself part of digital events and I guess that’s something that is going to happen a lot now.

What insights from the festival have sparked your interest and broadened your knowledge?

I caught a glimpse of the funding talks. I was interested in that because I’ve had questions about funding and regulations and so forth, and that was quite informative for me. I’m super interested in the rest of the talks too, especially seeing that I’m a music person, I’m likely to connect more to anything that is music related such as, the creation of music and so forth. I found myself having an interest in animation which is something that at some point, should the universe allow, I do want to get into as I’ve had an interest in it and I’m happy that there was a platform where I was getting to learn about something I’m interested in.

As a key creator, what does African Digital Music Innovation mean to you, and where do you see it going?

I’m a vinyl head, I mainly play as a DJ and I’ve always wanted to be on vinyl. I released my album digitally because there’s a wider reach. And when it comes to, like you say, African innovation, music is something from the soul and it’s so nice to share your soul across the world without any limitations, and that’s what I appreciate about digital music.

It also made me realise that we are going to get to a point where we are streaming literally everything, I mean, COVID helped us navigate the idea that it’s okay to sometimes not be physically present but we can all be part of that experience, even if it’s from different parts of the world. We can all see it, experience it, feel it and all connect with that which already on its own is making our souls happy. In terms of infusing it in my music, I wanted my album to be on the record, which sparked so many ideas with what I can do as a musician and as a DJ, but also the healer because I consult online as well, which is amazing because I thought there would be a bridge where spirit wouldn’t allow us to connect, but actually energy is energy. You feel someone you see and that already shows you the power of the Spirit and the power of energy as a whole. Similar to technology, I can read someone who’s in Cape Town, and still know everything about their life.

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“IT’S VERY

How have things been since the release of your album? Will you be releasing it on vinyl as we’ve heard?

IMPORTANT

It’s been an interesting journey with the album. I mean, when I released it last year on digital platforms, after nine days, it was number two on iTunes. I think I’ll always be mind blown by that because I feel like I’m an unknown artist and so I was taken aback at being number two! When I recorded the album, I was hospitalised for depression so I’d record on Saturdays, that’s when they’d let us out for the day. I was in a very fuzzy and misty space that I couldn’t explain, but what came out was something everyone could resonate with, and that always warms my heart because it reminds me constantly, to stay authentic and give from a place of purity and honesty. After all, when you stay authentic you stay in your power, you don’t need to be anything or anyone else but you.

It’s been interesting and people have loved it and they still rave about it, some have shared stories of how the album helps them, someone once said that the album healed them in ways they can’t explain, and for me that’ll forever warm my heart. So that first album has now inspired the next album.

TO FIRSTLY, FOCUS ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT ”

Please express the importance of focusing on the continent, and what value do you think is attached to it for the audience, as well as the creator.

It’s very important, firstly, to focus on the African continent as it helps you know yourself as an African person. I’m going to refer to spirituality because there’s a huge link between it and Africanism, for instance, there’s a spirit and our spirit is from Africa.

To find a Xhosa girl like me having the spirit from a descendant from Africa, Ethiopia, or Zimbabwe, already shows you that zaziknow imvelaphi yakho (know where you come from) because it’s not limited to just here,it’s limited to everywhere else in Africa and through that we can see that spirits follow us because we are connected, we are one. We learn it later in our lives, that we are one and that for me has really helped me connect with knowing myself, ubumina, wenawedwa (you and only you). When I step outside of being a healer, outside of being a singer and many other things, who am I, Wenawedwa? I am a proud black woman and I would never change it for the world.

Interview by Anastatia Nkhuna IG: @wenawedwa

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2021 POSTER COMPETITION WINNER

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oweto born and bred, graphic designer and illustrator Thapelo Keetile has been crowned the 2021 Fak’ugesi poster creation competition winner.

On July 2021, Fak’ugesi called out to ALL African art directors, illustrators, 3D designers, animators, motion designers and graphic designers to submit their entries. Thapelo’s interpretation of the theme #BuildCozYouHaveTo came out at the top, and his design, an inspiring vision of Jozi as a smart city, powered by the creative use of technology, will be used on a continent-wide invitation to an immersive virtual experience, exhibitions and so much more.

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“I started imagining how South Africa, especially Johannesburg, is changing a lot. Before COVID, we never thought that we’d be dependent on how we do things digitally, but we are here now, so that pushed the idea. I started imagining a city that’s taken from the concept of a metropolis, it just sparked something in me, a thought of Johannesburg being a smart city, where everything is run digitally, where we would actually have the systems of artificial intelligence, and coming up with our own ways of solving our problems digitally. So there’s a lot of involvement in inclusivity and equality and everybody is getting involved in it. I think this is the time that we need to start working on as a country, as a city.”

It all started in grade one, where the University of Johannesburg graduate was inspired by incredibly advanced artwork made by a peer: “I couldn’t believe that somebody could draw at that level to start with, and secondly, seeing you could actually transfer what you can see with your eyes on paper was even more amazing, and that’s how it started.” From there, the fascination grew bigger at every sight of new art. “I started drawing people’s faces. It started as simple as trying to take my paper and trying to replicate what I saw happening on TV, especially the cartoons. I was stunned by how these drawn images were moving, so I challenged myself to find out how that was done. I developed an interest in animation, specifically flat, 2D animation. I wasn’t completely exposed to computers by then, so drawing animation, watching cartoons like Pokemon, Dragonball Z was what pushed me into doing that.”

The High school phase tends to be a ‘make it or break it’ test for young creative pursuits, and Thapelo’s stuck. Those after school cartoon reproductions became paintings for classmates, eventually involving real life portraits. With his parents’ support, he continued to develop his art. “They made a big effort to involve me in the arts by taking me to art classes and getting me involved in activities in school that would involve me drawing weekly, or monthly art for articles.”

“It’s true what they say about tenacity, it pays off.”

It’s true what they say about tenacity, it pays off. Thapelo has built a creative career in graphic design & illustration for advertising agencies and corporations, alongside a thriving

collection of collaborative multimedia passion projects from album covers, to placement print tees. The creative professional dream come true is worthwhile, but it’s not without challenges: “A lot of challenges that I have encountered include the struggles of getting some sort of PR…marketing my work and, you know, having platforms to help me put it out there.

So at the moment, I’ve put my work on platforms like Behance and Instagram. Perhaps it also needs a little bit of thinking on my part, but I haven’t gotten to a point where I can expose my work at a larger scale. Another challenge is, with a lot of technologies emerging, there are a lot of problems coming up.

I haven’t gotten the knowledge to actually figure out how I can, you know, merge my work, introducing these new tools. So just learning, learning a lot more about those, and also learning a lot about how I can get more exposure.”

Closing that gap is why he’s looking forward to more than seeing his winning design come to life all over the festival — it’s the shared learning opportunity it represents across the world of digital creativity that he’s really excited about. “I’d like to see what people are thinking about, or coming up with. I think I’m gonna see a lot; ideas that people are coming up with, and not be confined to what I know. Because what I know is mostly, you know, the skill of making illustrations and drawing, and just evolving in that area. I’d like to see what I can absorb, and what input I can make here.

So that’s the past — what’s next for this Johannesburg based creative? Breaking through mediums is the goal. “My dream is to start off with the skills and the talent that I have, and reflect it through different mediums. I have a lot of ambitions to do this in the form of sculptures, toys, or, interpreting what I have to say through clothing, and even comic books and animations, if possible. Throughout the years, I’ve been focused on developing an appropriate style that would suit the sort of narrative I would like to build, to take what I’m building with my style to different mediums for people to enjoy” The shining star wants to make the jump from 2D to 3D. “An example that I’m very ambitious about doing is park sculptures, especially for kids to enjoy while they’re with their families. That’s something I would like to get involved in, maybe in collaboration with the city, to see how we can create environmentally friendly spaces, especially for the younger generations to come.”

IG: @grimmz_sa

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GAMING DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

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TTHYNK Game Development Training academy and Incubator is a company that focuses on training and supporting young, aspiring game developers in Africa. Ludique Works is a Video Game Publishing company that strives to change the perception of ‘gaming’ in Africa, all the while offering a path for people to tell unique stories. In collaboration with Lidique Works, Immortal Media and Africa Games Week to name a few, the ITTHYNK Game Development Incubator Program was designed to equip imminent video game developers and artists with the necessary skills, and necessary funding to launch, and further manage a profitable video game development studio.

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Q

Please introduce yourself, and tell us more about what you do and your role in this festival?

I’m Benon Maguta, Project Manager for the ITTHYNK Game Development I n c u b a t i o n P ro g r a m a n d Tr a i n i n g academy. We run an academy that aims to train young South Africans in game development, and other related skills. In addition, we also run an Incubator that funds more settled game developers, and helps them take their ideas to prototypes with the hope that they get additional investments to make their final product. Our role in Fak’ugesi is to facilitate the running of games during the Gaming Hackathon.’

[Robbin] I’m Robin Bleekers, and I’m more involved in looking after the business development strategy side of things at ITTHYNK. [Douglas] I’m Douglas Ogeto from LudiqueWorks.

We are a pan-African game publishing company that looks at the industry side of things.

Q

What can we expect from you in this year’s festival, and how will you be incorporating the ‘Build coz u have to’ theme?

[Ben] Firstly, don’t necessarily expect a game, at this year’s festival we’re going to be solving a real-life problem. Esports is a gaming competition, and it is at the centre of gaming right now but unfortunately, it’s not accessible to everyone because of the hardware and data requirements. So, we are trying to work out if there is a way that can help us increase the access to such content to everyone, not just Esports. Our goal is to go beyond that and see how, in terms of digital content in general, we can make it accessible to ordinary South Africans.

We’re going to try and develop a solution that aims to solve that problem.

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[Robbin] My role at the festival is to help and support Ben by ensuring that we have the best product out. This will be done by ensuring that the judges have the right framework to assess the applications that they will be judging as part of the process. I will also be training, a result of my Management Consultant profession.

I’ll be doing a brief session where I will be teaching the participants about problem-solving in the VUCA (Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world, so that it hopefully enables them to effectively apply the tools as they go about trying to develop the applications.

[Douglas] Students across the continent are building games while faced with the challenge of the distribution and monetization of their products. So, we bring in the expertise of marketing, distribution, and most importantly, monetization, things that will enable these students to sustain this coding, and grow. Through our collaboration with Faku’gesi, we are connecting what’s being learnt on paper, with the practical stuff, and hoping that they get the same substitutes. We do this by bringing industry experts into the programme to offer these students learning opportunities.

Q

Doug, what stands out for you when looking for students to join Ludique Works?

[Douglas] So, the key thing for us is the story.

The commonality between ITTHYNK and Ludique, is our need to provide the ability for these developers to tell a story through the medium of gaming, so in addition to ITTHYNK Gaming, for us, it’s all about stortytelling.

Q

What issues do you believe stand in the way of the engagement between game developers and their audience?

[Douglas] When we speak about the programme, the biggest hurdle is, given that Africa is a continent of many countries, each country has its dynamics and based on those dynamics, the challenge within the capacity of a studio might be; how do we reach out to all of these demographics?.

Another hurdle, I guess, lies in just the dynamics of the country, such as the language, currency, etc.

[Ben] If you’re a game developer in Africa, you don’t have a lot of room for failure. Like any other market, you have to constantly service the market for it to be effective.

For me, issues lie in the lack of having room for failure, and not knowing if bills will be paid or if livelihoods won’t be jeopardised if people decide to continue doing the gaming that they love.

[Robin] So, I think there are two pieces to this puzzle of game development. The first is developing the game itself. There is a fragmented ecosystem, which means that you’ve got a lot of individuals that are keen in the creation and developing of games across Africa, but lack access that will enable them to complete the games. In our programme, we have an individual team studio operating in Soshanguve that we are supporting, and they have old laptops and equipment that they’ve had to piece together to be able to generate incredible graphics.

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They’ve got no funding, so they have to do consulting work on-site to supplement their income and to build on that. One of the largest studios in the rest of Africa does the same because creating the games takes so long that you cannot generate sufficient revenue from the games, another result that impedes the creative process is a serious capital constraint. Then over and above that, you have the challenge of access to the market, whereas the person already have a very large number of games that are on the different app stores, so you almost find that the game get crowded by the bigger players who already have somewhat of a monopoly on the market, resulting in a situation where gamers struggle to find success.

Essentially, all of the things that make for a far more professional, and progressive product come with having financial resources. And this is what we mean by having a fragmented ecosystem.

Q

Please tell us a bit about the entrepreneurial front of game development in the African context.

[Robin] It’s bilateral, when you look at the creation of a game, you get varying levels of quality. You’ll get your triple A-rated studios that create big games like Assassin’s Creed, and FIFA and Clash of Clans, and then you’ve got your smaller indie studios that will create lower quality games, something in the context of South Africa, Assemblance, where they focus more on the playability

than on the assets. This begs the question “Is it expensive?”, when you focus on these indie games and these simpler games that have lesser quality assets, so the way the game looks, but are more focused on the playability, the barriers to entry are fairly low. You need to be able to code, to think about how you design the game, and see if you can get away with a minimal fireworks display, then, you can create a very impressive game on a low budget. Then there is the other side, where a game like Halo can cost up to, or beyond $30 million to create. Either way, you still need to sustain yourself.

Q

Accessibility is important when it comes to gaming development or even learning about it. What tools does one need to start and what tools do your audience need to access all this knowledge?

[Douglas] In the case of accessibility, I think that as long as a user has access to a smartphone that has Google Play Store or App store, then they can access these games and programmes. For tools, in the development side of things, developers now have various options, with three programming languagesUnity, Unreal and Construct so, based on their experience, there are a couple of options.

Q How does one access the

incubators funding opportunities?

[Ben] We (ITTHYNK) launch a call for applications and pick about four or five team companies and this year this was done around April. So, what one should do is look out for the call for applications if they want to join our specific one but I do understand that there are a few around so that’s also worth looking at.

Q

Is there a specific criterion that must be followed?

[Ben] Yes, to join the incubator you have to have a certain level of game development knowledge, or at least, some experience because here, we are helping you build your game, not necessarily thow to get it. Although, that’s also available for people to learn why and how to develop. But basically, we look for people that have some sort of experience developing games and the desire to take the idea to the next level.

Interview by Ntokozo Mabuza IG: @itthynk

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H

ailing from Johannesburg, South Africa is none-other than Sharp-Lee Mthimkulu, aka LeetchiSan, a multi-disciplined creative.

LeetchiSan, an alias that meaningfully translates to “respect the power within” addresses personal matters relating to the self (introspection, discovery and worth).

k* lic *C

*C lick *

Q

Please introduce yourself and the role that you’ll be playing in this year’s festival.

I am Sharp-Lee Mthimkulu, commonly known as LeetchiSan. I’m a designer, illustrator, animator and motion designer, amongst other things. I also do videography and web design. In terms of the festival, I was a student in the Informal Visualisation Lab, where we had someone from Columbia show us this one programme and how to use it in all our collaborative realms to produce one final product that was launched on Saturday at Fak’ugesi. I will be hosting an ‘Illustration Battle’, where six illustrators will be battling it out in three rounds with the winner taking home R1500.00 in cash. I also got retained to do some animation work for the festival.

Q

What does it mean to you to be a digital artist?

To be a digital artist, I’d say, is all about using digital tools to express oneself, or to express an idea while observing everyday life and the use of those tools to fuel creativity.

Q

What can we expect from you at the festival? And how will you be using this year’s theme?

I’m always willing to learn and understand new things, hence my involvement with the labS, where I continue to learn new skills as an illustrator, and on many other programmes. For example, we have a workshop where we illustrated a lot most of the time, but then towards the end, there was a link to coding and how you can take those illustrations and put them into a programme that makes games.

Q

How has being involved in this year’s festival impacted you and your artistry?

Fak’ugesi is always insightful in terms of seeing all the submissions and seeing what other people are kind of working on and so it is an event that is always inspiring to be around. Takeaways for my way of illustration in collaboration with Fak’ugesi also helps with the next grant funding, over and above that it’s also amazing to see the work open to all the people.

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“One of the main reasons for my career in illustration is the idea of accessibility...”

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Q

Let’s talk about accessibility, as a centre of discourse in art and its significance. When it comes to creating digital art, what tools are needed for your audience to access your art? Secondly, where does one start as a digital artist?

The Internet. At this stage, that’s one thing you’ll need, as well as having access to the physical work. One of the main reasons for my career in illustration is accessibility because I feel that there’s no access to local illustrators- I remember when I was in varsity doing my thesis and assessments, I would try to find local guys to write about but there’s none of that, it’s mostly international people. So that was my thinking around the ways of illustration- to create a catalogue of African illustrators that students or other people could use as a reference for their work. These days there are so many programmes, tools, and apps. There are quite a few options you can explore to create. And I guess in the digital space, it’s easier because you can just upload, but that doesn’t mean you get paid for that.

Learning to navigate digital spaces is also important because to some extent, we are nearing an end to gallery life.

Q

If you were to mention one start-up app, for a beginner to use, what do you think that would be?

Okay, let’s also clarify that in digital space there are a number of ways to showcase. So, you can say it’s a digital illustration, or it’s a 3-D character, or it’s like motion graphics, or like abstract stuff. So, all of those can be created within different programmes. So then, going back to your question, one should first decipher in which direction they’re trying to go, because there are specific programmes to get started. So maybe for like illustrations it would be Auto Disk Sketchbook, that’s a free available programme, that you can just download and then use on almost all devices, phone, laptop, tablet. With 3-D stuff there’s Blender which is another free programme that you just download and use to produce great results.

Q

What issues do you believe are in the way for digital artists to interact with their audience?

Understanding the business and monetization aspect and getting the confidence to manoeuvre in that space. We’ve all been to exhibitions where it’s like a scribble on the wall selling for a huge amount, so if you understand the business behind it and understand the space surrounding, then you can walk in confidently and own that price.

Q What inspired the By Way of Illustration book, and how has its impact grown over the years?

By Way of Illustration came about through the desire to learn and to kind of understand the illustration space better.

I knew a few friends that were already illustrators but their career paths kind of went in other directions. So, we hosted events at The Hive in Joburg and invited illustrators to have these conversations, where some of us also performed live illustrations, and from there we decided that the information wasn’t to be kept as just an event. So, we took those illustrations and decided to input them into the first book, and that kind of started the build-up of the book.

Q

And how has the impact of it grown over the years?

I mean at first it was just an idea that being- we don’t have conversations with illustrators, and that evolved into the workshops with this year’s collaboration being with Fak’ugesi, and we have also collaborated with Basha Uhuru. So yeah, it was an idea that has its value amongst people, to a point where now there are other ideas added to the project. It’s no longer just an event series or a book series, we’re now creating workshops, having our own digital exhibitions, you know, so yeah its now growing fruits.

Q What are you hoping to achieve through the festival with your motto, ‘Respect the power within and your overall artistry’?

Respect for the power within comes from my aka, LeetchiSan, which when broken down means; Lee (me) chee (power) and San (in the Japanese cultures if you’re respective, it is inspired by their respective policy). In respecting the power within, you’re respecting yourself and wanting the best for yourself. Growth is always required in learning and growing a community and extending opportunities, so through the festival all of those boxes have to be ticked.

Interview by Ntokozo Mabuza IG: @leetchisan

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RE/MEMBER YOUR DESCENDANTS.

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A

ward-winning performer, writer, new media artist, social activist, and most importantly, multiple poetry slam champion winner, Xabiso Vili, who through his writing explores his inner world in relation with that of his exterior, collaborates with none other than the aliased, Blackvillage Kid, Sonwabo Valashiya a Joburg based, South African digital illustrator and graphic designer whose illustration style emanates from African aesthetics and diversities.

Together, Xabiso and Sonwabo join the Fak’ugesi Festival to showcase their spiritual realism illustrations infused with poetry, and folklore telling in Re/Member your Descendants, known for its inquiry of “What will we become Ancestors of?”.

Q

Please give us a brief intro of who you are, and the role that you’ll be playing at this year’s Fak’ugesi festival.

[Xabiso] I am Xabiso Vili, a writer, performer, a thinker, and a producer around stories and magic, focusing on their interaction with our reality. I’m also one of the creators of Remember Your Descendants, an exhibit at Fak’ugesi. It is an augmented reality project that combines illustration with poetry and music to ask the question: “If you were an ancestor, what would your descendants call upon you for?”

[Sonwabo] I am a creative with a background in Graphic Design, an Illustrator at heart with a style that focuses on African aesthetics and the beauty of our people, cultures, diversity and our storytelling. So, it was a good idea for me and Xabiso to collaborate on the project- Re/Member your Descendantsthat is showing at Fak’ugesi this year. It’s been quite a journey and a good collaborative effort.

Q

Xabiso, as an author, what impact does the festival have on your career and the overall global perspective?

I think that it’s always important for writers to explore new forms of storytelling. The world is growing and developing, and as much as we love putting together a good read, we need to think creatively about how to engage readers. Through this project with Fak’ugesi and a global interaction, I’m very excited to see how we’re going to use new technologies to pull in new readers and tell stories in a new way. I’ve been very excited about the project we’ve been working on and others that I’ve seen on the line-up for the festival.

Q

Sonwabo as a graphic designer illustrator, what impact does the festival have on your career and global perspective?

I think for the fact that for this project, we were able to exhibit it in pairs, it had quite a big impact on my career. It was sort of an exposure of my work to a global audience, and I believe that that was just the tip of the iceberg because there are still so many ideas that we have for this project, and also just looking at different ways we can preserve our cultures and our stories in very innovative ways Q

How do you guys explore the notion of building by using immersive media for yourselves and the broader community?

[Sonwabo] I think in our field of storytelling we’re building for the next generation, the descendants. We find ways of preserving that culture and our way of being, thus building a community that really knows themselves, our history, culture and traditions.

So, I think with immersive media, using specifically augmented reality or extended reality itself to explore these ways where we can actually build a community that is innovative, that is also equipped with new technologies, and that’s what we’re building, that’s where we want to see our community.

[Xabiso] It’s also centred around the power of imagination and creating a new world because that alone plays such an important role in the work. I think we use this art as a space from which we can start imagining ourselves as these spiritual beings, but also, with Remember your Descendants, it’s not just to remember those who come ahead of you, but to put them together. It is by putting ourselves together and imagining ourselves that we’re able to put together the future.

Q

What are your thoughts on the impact of this festival on how you can level up in your sector?

[Xabiso] I mean, first of all, I think we’re very lucky and blessed that we can finally have a South African launch for the work. Paris was really exciting, a different type of experience, but for me it’s been different seeing how the work is interacting with people back home, because people recognise these images.

Little things like standing outside and getting the images of how people come up and say, “yo, this is our culture!”. It’s important to be represented. It’s been really exciting seeing that work and that shift, and like Sonwabo was saying earlier on, there are a lot of branches that we’re starting to see and

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imagine, of how our work can grow and move, and what type of projects can springboard from it. I think for us, this was our first attempt at augmented reality, our first full project and now that we’re starting to understand it better and explore it, we get a better feeling of how best we can use it and tell stories through technology.

[Sonwabo] I think we are also trying to move ourselves in this immersive new media, building towards that and trying to get funding for these projects that might be big ideas and really need the capital, so what could really be helpful is to get sponsors and partners that can help us build.

Q

Please briefly unpack the entrepreneurial front of immersive media in the African context?

[Xabiso] This comes down to that conversation of access, which is such an important one, and I think that’s why Sonwabo and I were very excited to use augmented reality, in particular, because phones are more readily accessible. But, if we’re looking at immersive media as a whole it ranges. For instance, if you look at virtual reality, an entry set is like R3000.00, then something like projection mapping which goes into the hundreds of 1000s, maybe even Millions to just have the equipment, before you even start talking about the hundreds of 1000s you need to split up something like a five minutes animation. I mean, even with VR films, which are quite similar in pricing, you need hundreds of 1000s to record. Sonwabo and I and the team at Re/Member your Descendants had a very, very tiny budget, and we did what we could with it, and we’re still trying to figure out what else to do, and how to build sustainability. So yes, it is, and there needs to be greater work in getting it to be more accessible and with accessibility, comes the responsibility of making people aware of this technology and this art. The more people use it, the more affordable it can become.

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“I really do think that there’s so much culture, so many stories across Africa, across the Diaspora across the entire world, that can be told and need to be told...”

FAK’UGESI 2021 ISSUE

Q

Xabiso, what are you looking forward to achieving through this year’s festival, using your love for storytelling, more specifically on telling folk tales?

This is already exciting because it all kind of started as this springboard of finding new ways of telling old and new stories. But I think my mind has kind of been opened up in terms of the direction that Re/Member your Descendants can take. There are a lot of possibilities of getting Re/Member your Descendants, the work, moving through South Africa, something that has started already. I am also excited to see, explore, and listen to other panels throughout the festival, just to see how and where the storytelling and the poetry can mix and merge, and how it can grow. I’m excited to see how we go about building these stories together.

Q

What are you guys looking forward to, with regards to the development of immersive media through your creative expertise and enterprise?

[Sonwabo] We’re looking forward to experimenting with what we have right now, using that to explore multiple ways of telling our stories through this media. I also believe that we’ll need a team of people that are experts in the field, so, I’m also looking forward to Re/Member your Descendants not just being a project, but also as a movement, exploring different parts of Africa and the world. I’m looking forward to receiving feedback on how the project is making an impact and also, how the stories are viewed by the audience. The launch itself was really cool for me as I got to see how even kids were interacting with this media on the street. It’s really interesting to gather that information from them because they are really into this new immersive media technology.

[Xabiso] I really think that there’s so much culture and so many stories across Africa, across the Diaspora and the entire world that can be told and need to be told, and engaging people in their stories and turning them into these ancestors. Even with what Sonwabo said around having a team of professionals and us getting even more professional, the immersive space having existed for some time, is still at the forefront and precipice of really breaking into the mainstream and being something that everybody is constantly using. I really want Re/Member your Descendants to be one of those projects that was there from the beginning of the becoming of digital art. I’m going to be in the mountains for the next couple of days, so how do you get a VR headset in a two-hour drive into the mountain and make sure that the people accessing it know how to use it? Those are some of the questions that we need to be chatting about.

Q Sonwabo, with your focus on spirituality and knowing your descendants, what are you looking forward to achieving through the event?

I’m looking forward to exploring new ways that people can interact with our work, and getting feedback so we can start building connections. Constructive criticism, as well as working with technologies in an African landscape are also an important part of the process. Acknowledging the fact that there will be glitches here and there, is also a learning curve for us. From the launch alone, there were a lot of things that we learned, like putting up the work and all those challenges that we learn from, we’ll keep building towards perfecting this craft and perfecting the project, and really trying to fine tune all the different ways of approaching things.

Interview by Ntokozo Mabuza IG: @xabisovili & @blackvillagekid

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E Q

dward Lobo, commonly known by his alias hueman.ntr is an African futuristic 3D artist, a rc h i t e c t , a n d S c i - f i f i l m m a k e r w h o m a k e s alternative African environments in Blender.

Please introduce yourself and provide an overview of what you do?

My name is Edward Lobo, my art name is Hueman ntr, human with an hue in the front, which represents all humans coming from different colours and hues, and nature spelt ntr which is the representation of the Egyptian Deities. I felt a connection between human and nature. I am a 3D artist and I make Afro futuristic Sci-fi sceneries which explore alternative timelines and discuss African stories from the perspective of different types of people.

Q

What role will you be playing in this year’s festival?

I will be interacting in the digital animation spaces, but my art also falls under digital art because I also tap into photography as well. At one of the talks I will be touching on the work I do in 3D, and my experience with using the NFT space, because it’s now a new space for digital arts, one that I’ve been trying my luck in since the beginning of 2020. I’ve recently been relatively successful so I will also be discussing affairs as an NFT Artist.

Q

Drawing from this year’s theme of “build coz you have to”, how are you exploring the notion of building using the tools that you use to create 3D animation and photography, how do you build your work?

There is a technical and a philosophical answer to this question. On the technical side, I will be discussing the process of my workflow and the software I use, which is what I use to get better. I have only been doing this for two years and I have noticed my improvement, so it’s only important that I share what I know.

The philosophical approach looks at instances where we deal with African sci-fi art, you are not just dealing with creating these magnificent images, you are also helping people rethink their history. For example my upcoming collection is about rare objects that are, basically, a collection of 3D objects of artefacts that have been sent back from colonial Europe, so from Belgium and Britain, so I’ve recreated those objects and they’ll be sold as NFT’s. This increases the value of the actual artefacts and will help people with rethinking what could have been the purpose of these artefacts, were they just aesthetics or were they actually useful in their everyday life? People will

actually find out that most of the things that we call art today were actually tools, and that’s gonna help people rethink the meaning of a tool.

Q

Tech and innovation is often perceived as something that is hard to understand and participate in. How is your work challenging this perception?

It’s about understanding what the meaning of technology is.

There has been this whitewashed definition of technology that just means screen and I think it should be based more on usage. I was fortunate enough to be in a solution finding, think tank group that we worked for a week with Nyambura M. Waruingi, and within that bubble we were discussing solutions of overcoming the barrier of Africans within the NFT space because a lot of us don’t have access to electricity and good WiFi, and have many socio-political factors working against us that keep us away from being up to date with the NFT space.

One of the solutions that came up was from a lady working in the rural areas in Kenya and were giving people access to the electrical grid, and selling it to them through an app on their phone. They could buy electricity online which is a great implementation of technology, which is all about usage, just like how mankind went from looking at the stars to being in the stars. I think if we were to look at technology and WiFi access the same way, within 10 years it won’t be a barrier as it is today.

Q

Mobility and access to the internet can tend to be a barrier to innovation. In your work how do you consider the accessibility of what you are producing?

I’ve been obsessed with VR experiences and one of the biggest parts of these things is having the VR goggles and not everyone can afford these. So there is a huge number of people who aren’t seeing the content. So one of the things I did with my collaborations for 2022 I worked with Ethel Tawe, she’s a Cameroonian curator who does art to photography, and she and I had the opportunity to work together on an exhibition in Nigeria with A White Space Lagos and I was the only 3D artist within the exhibition. She had the idea of people being able to experience the space within VR because it was during Covid-19 and they wouldn’t get access to the opportunity, and at the time I was learning how to use Google Tours and that’s what we used for the exhibition and people were able to view the gallery on their phones without goggles

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“My goal is to use this opportunity to learn from other artists and get involved in their spaces." and have the sense of being in the space and navigating left and right. It was about pushing the boundary further than the websites with your artworks shown on it as it gives a more immersive feel.

Technology requires investment, instead of people creating dependency on more gadgets, we should look at the phone as a complete object and make everything work on a good phone.

Q

How feasible have you found your new career in 3D filmmaking to be?

I used to be an architect and in the beginning everyone was saying I should just be an architect and earn a salary that can help you survive and do many things and having studied for 4 years I wanted my money’s worth, but that takes a pretty long time. So when I moved to Congo I was struggling with the question of becoming an architect again then I heard of the artist Beeple Crap who sold the NFT for $67 million. So I believed I can make millions from good 3D art and I decided to learn what goes into 3D art and it turned out that to make a scene it would take me a long time. I was met by the changes of my mother telling me to get a job since I hold a degree but I told her I really wanted to become an artist.

The one thing that really changed my life was the exhibition with A White Space Lagos, it was my first exhibition where my work was physically printed and after the exhibition launched there were two billboards in London that had myself and

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Ethel Tawe’s name and the artworks we created where only two of them were sold. The support I received from my mother has been incredible because she saw that there was a future for me in this.

Marketing my NFT’s on Twitter spaces was also a great idea because the sooner I started promoting my work I started getting into conversations with interested buyers and I started communicating the value of my work.

Q

How do you intend to power up your specific industry with the work you do, and how do you envision using the Fak’ugesi platform to create conversations, transfer skills and network?

I aim to start my own Patreon channel where people could get access to African 3D assets because I have noticed that in terms of the industry, a lot of 3D artists and 3D generalists usually do Western arts and not with the intentionality to do Western but just that the objects within the images are Western suggestive and it’s because they make art with what’s available to them. When I got into the 3D space I started with making Western objects because I used to be an architect before, so I also got into the Greek statues with the pool on the side, but after a while I moved to Kinshasa in

2020 from South Africa and I had a real culture shock when I saw that Congo wasn’t progressing. And I thought about how my 3D art was not my reality and I started making art that was more about where I am at.

3D art is about efficiency and because there weren’t many assets I needed online I had to create my own. So I started designing my own African masks, drums, curtains, baskets etc all using pictures from Pinterest that I would remodel in Blender and I would use them to create my scenes. So I would like to have tutorials and walk people through how I make my scenes and make the asset and go through my workflow so a lot more people can jump over the learning curve I had to go through so they can make quickly get to making the art so that the art can be pushed to having more creators. So I will be starting this with my talk as I will be giving tips on good accounts to follow and YouTube channels to learn from.

My goal is to use this opportunity to learn from other artists and get involved in their spaces. I’ll also give them my own experience on how they can promote their work and hopefully by the end of the year I would have a good community of people.

Interview by Anastatia Nkhuna IG: @hueman.ntr

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yambura M. Waruingi, based in Nairobi, Kenya is the founder & Creative Director of Akoia & Company that develops, curates, produces, and collaborates across various artistic expressions, encountering unique ways to imagine new worlds through trans-media and immersive storytelling, focusing on producing extended reality experiences.

She is a cultural activist, producer, and disruptor with a 20-year career in film, television, theatre, and visual arts. She has worked with award-winning production companies, renowned public cultural institutions, and innovative film and visual arts collectives in Canada, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, the USA, India, UK, Uganda, and Nigeria. Gaming is her new frontier.

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Please introduce yourself and provide an overview of what you do?

My name is Nyambura M. Waruingi. I am the curator for immersive media and I am part of the virtual art gallery that everyone practising in immersive media will be participating in. I own a creative enterprise called Akoia & Company which curates and produces projects, which merge cinema, visual arts, gaming and immersive technologies.

Why did you start Akoia & Company?

I moved from Montreal to Nairobi to start Akoia & Company as I felt my career hit the ceiling in Canada. I was getting work as an independent producer which was great but I felt that Africa was ignored at times when it came to immersive technologies I wanted to explore in particular to the mobile because in Africa that is where our audience is. I am the founder and creative director so, my concentration is on the creative development process and growing creative properties.

What projects have you worked on that can better explain your work at Akoia & Company?

Currently at DOK Leipzig’s networking and inspiration programme in Germany at the DOK exchange which focuses on interactive and immersive storytelling with a focus on VR and AR works.

The project I am working on is called “The Ground Screams to Whisper.”

It is a transmedia experience about female militant independence and agriculturalists because they were stolen from villages and brought to farmland for the colonial project of tea and coffee.

They have been erased from our kind of independent struggle documentation in terms of their presence but these women caused a lot of problems for the colonial administration. They participated in riots and put money together to finance one of the founding fathers, you know, so they were important in our history that we do not acknowledge.

Please tell us more about immersive Jua Kali I was interested in what the stories of these women would be? How can we do an interactive, immersive experience to get to know their lives, joy, struggles and how they survived but importantly how they thrived in their very harsh environments of being taken away from their families and therefore being stripped from their rituals and traditions and how they kept their language alive.

So that is the type of storytelling I am interested in which is the unearthing of our histories in creative and innovative ways. That is actually how I came to Fak’ugesi, dillion discovered me on the internet.

Share more about how dillion discovered you and how the connection came to this opportunity? dillion expressed that he has been looking at my work around immersive media. I had started a curatorial practice called #immersivejuakali which means entrepreneur in Kiswahili. It is about trying to bring together different work and inquire into location-based work and all types of stuff. I wanted to make it happen but I didn’t know where people were so I started knocking on the different silos and then learning about different workarounds in Africa particularly South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal were strong at the beginning and now Kenya and Tanzania are joining in. That is how dillion and I met and he asked if I would be interested in curating for Fak’ugesi. I had been fanning out about the festival for quite some time, so it was an immediate yes because I wanted to be part of this amazing energy. I loved what Tshimologong was doing in South Africa because we don’t have that in Kenya. I am hoping to continue with immersive Jua kali.

When we talk about the Jua Kali sector, it’s about the entrepreneurial sector, it’s about working for yourself and making your own life. It was about making so I drew from that because my question around immersive media in Africa is as if we are making links in the international kind of space, but how are we making our own immersive work? What are the trajectories we’re taking, which is important, because particularly in Africa, for me, and coming here in the 90s, when you have this information, and communication technologies for development, saying they are going to save Africa, Africa is going to finally join the world it felt like tech and art were going to solve problems? It raised many questions for me. How are we doing for ourselves? Are we building our own audiences with this type of interactive work? And how is technology a tool and platform for creativity?

Immersive Jua Kali is about linking art, audience and technology while making it clear that technology is a tool for this and that as creators we are pushing technology and asking for it to be better in some ways where it becomes inclusive even for someone who cannot see to participate in an XR experience by haptic feedback or having Braille in exhibitions.

What can we expect from the talks you will be having?

There are two talks that I have concentrated on, one is on storytelling methodologies where I am asking different creators what theories are emerging from their art and learning from the practices they are using and how they are creating immersive work. For example, some are creating for Instagram and various platforms. I want to know what drives them in terms of ideas and artistic traditions.

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“I always say don’t think about the tech first think about your story...”

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Beyond the headset, what types of immersive experiences are available on WebXR, there is one creator who is putting together a virtual museum that is accessible through the headset and the Web. It’s important to have these chats because no one has figured it out. It’s still fertile ground. The talks will help in building our audience across the different platforms they have access to.

Tech language is often a border that stops us from participating in tech creativity. What are your thoughts on this? How can we make the jargon more accessible and understandable for the audience and curious creators?

A lot of jargon stops us from participating and particularly tech is a highly masculinized space mostly men working in this spaces more or less than women not because women do not want to but we have to start by addressing the attrition rate of girls in schools and what they’re allowed to study but also getting into the space itself the jargon at times is used to obfuscate to keep them from access. Now that collaboration in tech is being supported it makes it easy for innovation to be created. The next step is how do we translate this tech into different types of languages because English has a force that supports ageism and classism and can mark someone as “uneducated” and all the negative things that are baggage to English in an African context.

What I started to do in Immersive Jua Kali is to exist in the social aspect of immersive media and I tried talking about making using technology without being jargon oriented. I always say don’t think about the tech first think about your story and from there you can partner up with a VR world builder, a 3D artist or an audio engineer to explain your audio cues this will break down the hesitancy to imagine and even participate as artists who don’t feel like they have the technical capacity.

Using this year’s theme of “build coz you have to” how will your work in the programme illustrate this?

Immersive Jua Kali started because they had to build a space for someone like myself to actually exist in immersive media making an environment that was technologically driven. So it became a journey of trying to find other people and what they were doing.

My educational background, coming from critical cultural studies and Communication Studies background I had to sit down and interrogate who makes these decisions and why are immersive works being shown in festivals in Venice or Toronto but I don’t get to watch it. This led to the development of the two modules that are part of the festival, which are looking at how the creators are creating outside of the conventional understandings of immersive media and going beyond the headset. How are these technologist artists thinking through how it can be a tool for heritage?

The festival will seek to highlight how different people who are part of the talks, the galleries have been building because they have had to find a way to make their art so it tells a story and it makes sense to them. It didn’t come out of a place of just scarcity because at times you may not have this adapter.

No, it’s not what I want, it is what I’m responding to. And this is why I’m also finding my audience. So I feel that’s how we come together and really being part of a festival with the ethos of building is important even just a notion of Jua Kali, is an expansive look at the possibilities it can be on the web, phone or call it in a location, where we have video productions and watching the multiplicity of immersive experiences will be shown in a way, a new way of making 3D worlds. We’re still evolving. We are seeing artists in Congo, technologists from Ethiopia and we are hoping to see more coming from different parts of Africa. I want creators to not feel afraid and to feel like they know and to be comfortable with this type of artistic expression.

How do we create sustainability within the field of Immersive Media?

I feel that sustainability is important but I feel it is built on an audience to produce immersive media for. This means we create for an audience in mind and create so they can arrive at the content through the technologies and platforms they have already. We need to start building an ecosystem that can allow creators to produce and market what they’ve done and generate sales or distribution. We need to develop a distribution chain around it. Immersive media doesn’t only have to exist in an art culture space it can go into different industries and that’s when sustainability comes in.

Interview by Anastatia Nkhuna IG: @akoiaco

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TMS MAKER CULTURE SPACE

T

he Maker culture space refers to communities that gather in and around maker spaces, a concept offshoot of the early MIT Fab Lab movement. With their eye on realising tools for the 4IR pillars, these communities support skills development, prototyping and production using additive manufacturing, IoT, physical computing (robotics), and experimental code formats. We sat down with one of the creative geniuses behind these workshops, Mpho Makutu, to find out more about his role in solidifying this space and creating a ‘Maker culture’ way of thinking about innovation.

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taking two hours designing one earring there now I can catch off grainy design that in an hour and then after that I can make a couple of a couple of that earrings like yeah, so I mean like cool. What do you mean?

Please could you introduce yourself and give a brief introduction to who you are.

I’m the founder of Robotics. I specialize in robots and also facilitate the workshops on how to use 3D printers to design as well.

What role are you playing in the festival?

We have been teaching people how to use the CAD software, a computer-aided design. We share knowledge on how to design using that software and then after designing, pull the designs into a cure, from that, to lights and other softwares that we use for printing. So the participants are all a part of this for the festival. They will learn how to design a product using CAD software which is computer-aided design and also 3D print.

The definition for maker culture as publicly as it provides his maker communities for skills, skill development, prototyping and production, they also play a key role in building the Internet of Things will explore the growth of maker culture across Africa and peek at the ongoing project so prototyping Is this what you would say is what you make with the 3d prints and what kind of prints do you make?

I can take it from there like I can design that for someone like I can design it on on a CAD software and then I can 3d print that for him or I can show him how to do that software and then he or she can print that like yeah, I can just show you step by step on how to how to design and then yeah, you can take that to the printer. So and then and then again according to them, I’m just going to as well go according to the equations that they said like I will have to answer as well as gonna be like question number two.

So like the importance of this workshop or this festival so it’s that as the participants they will see the importance of building using tech very helpful and simplification I should put it that way because of what like one would start to see that everything is possible after designing a product which is a phone holder so they will be designing an earphone holder so it’s going to be a product that everyone will have to design is going to be the same product so now and and and again one would that to be very innovative by thinking out outside the box. Let’s take for an example let’s say there’s one there’s a guy maybe who’s into art and they will be made pendants like you see these guys sometimes they using their hands to make like pendants and then they can cram it like Sunday using the ends to make like what do you call the uriens so one we start to see that Oh, now I can use a CAD software to design that hearing instead of

You mentioned the importance of the program which is making designs for our life. You know when we think about the theme of this year, which is both because you have to know what the expectations of the festival are, and how do you think Maker culture is exploring the root of both?

I will start by saying that the impact of this festival will be an opportunity for the knowledge of skills of how the CAD software works, computer-aided design, and also to create 3D printing machines. This allows them to be very creative and start designing more products for commercialization.

What have you done on your own as an employee using this art form and how did you start?

My passion comes from designing and making stuff, no one really taught me how to build this stuff. From a very young age, I used to build using trash from different places, things like cars that can move with remote controllers and excavators like my “Admiral Area.”

I would go home to look for spare electrical parts for my father’s music system and then take that apart. I would also take my designs to school and ensure the teachers and other students saw them and they were always motivating me to continue.

Are you excited to be no part of fabric AC? My program is going to start at 20 Press.

FirstNet is going to be this Thursday, and I’m very excited about that. I am happy to see people learning these skills.

A lot of us have always believed in ourselves and the things we design. You only need people who can offer you this kind of skill because I know everyone goes out very happy after attending this workshop.

How do you, in your work, make sure that you put the stamp on this as a proudly African innovation, and how are you going to make sure that whatever you produce as input is proudly representative of being African for being from where you were raised?

I’m a treasure wood maker and that is something that is in me, and I don’t want to lose. I’m using these machines and 3D printers to create designs, and I always make sure that Africans are represented in some way.

Interview by Anastatia Nkhuna IG: @cainempho

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iQhawe Magazine iQhawe Magazine is a digital publication aimed at merging the gap between aspiring creatives and their respective industries. We believe easy access to information through the growing digitalization of traditional forms to reach a wider audience which will then help eradicate the lack of resources/skills/knowledge and accessibility to the right channels faced by young aspiring creatives.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this issue possible and the IQhawe Team.

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