(A
scene from “Hamlet”. Pic by Boris Nikitin)
The National Arts Festival has announced a
programme of work that is “inspiring, innovative, jaw-dropping and attention
grabbing” for the inaugural Creativate Digital Arts Festival, due to take place
from June 28– to July 1 in Grahamstown as part of the National Arts Festival.
“Creativate seeks to explore the space
where creativity, innovation and technology converge. It’s a playground for
artists and audiences interested in how the digital age is helping to bring our
imaginations to life, and who want to experience the creative tools of the
future,” said Festival CEO and co-curator of the new Festival, Tony Lankester.
The jam-packed programme comprises a mix of
lectures, workshops, film and performances, focused mainly in one Creativate
Hub in Grahamstown. “The Festival is for the curious and creatively minded – we
want audiences to check in with us in the morning and spend a full day
wandering through the spaces and events we have created,” Lankester added.
“We’re expecting the events to appeal to those aged 12 to 80, and technical
fluency is less of a pre-requisite than an enquiring mind!”
LECTURE
SERIES
“We’ve invited some of South Africa and the
world’s brightest thinkers to come and share their insights with us,”
co-Curator Toby Shapshak said. Headlining the Creativate Engage series is
Monika Bielskyte, described as “a futurist with an artist's eye and an
inventor’s mind”, presenting a mind-bending journey through what could be and
sharing her experiences in designing Sci-Fi worlds for the entertainment
industry.
Other lectures include:
-William Kentridge-collaborator, filmmaker
and Museum designer Yoav Dagan;
-WeChat founder and CEO Brett Loubser
asking if artificial intelligence could ever replace artists;
-Tom Gray, a UK-based South African
innovation consultant reflecting on the worlds – and opportunities – created by
virtual and augmented reality.
-Maximillian Kaizen shares her insights
into how artists can use new tools to make their careers sustainable and to
build independence using tech and storycraft
PERFORMANCES
Says curatorial advisor Ashraf Johaardien,
“Genres and traditional forms are blurring fast and with adoption of technology
into the arts space, the trajectory has become even more interesting.
Certainly, this digital infusion has the potential to expand the role of the
arts, attract more diverse audiences and brings new skills and ideas to the
creative space. It’s an exciting growth area and we are attentive to how this
will also play out in the South African context.
The Creativate programme will showcase two
international performances that illustrate how artists are integrating
technology into their work. In a Swiss production of Hamlet, author and director Boris Nikitin rewrites the most famous
of all theatre pieces and transforms it into a contemporary performance,
featuring a mix of experimental documentary play and music-theatre. Doghouse is a 20-minute virtual reality
play from Denmark which an audience of five people experience through headsets.
WORKSHOPS
A critical part of Creativate, explains
Lankester, is giving participants the opportunity not just to hear about new
tools and technology, but to roll up their sleeves and to play. “Often the
biggest barrier to using new technology is fear – fear of breaking something,
anxiety that something is too difficult, remote or foreign to be useful.” To
respond to that, organisers have selected workshops that are closer to
playrooms than laboratories.
Leading the way, the Johannesburg-based
Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival will be hosting two workshop
spaces - If These Walls Could Talk
will teach participants how to use electronics to craft props and touch
sensitive surfaces for use in theatres; while their Games Play Room will
showcase local computer games designed and developed by the Wits Digital Arts
Division.
Rhodes University’s Alette Schoon will be
working with local hip-hop artists to create and animate afrofuturist cartoon
characters in a computer lab, while Zimbabwean artist Thuthukani Ndlovu will be
running a poetry hackathon leading to a digital art exhibition.
Music is taking a front row at Creativate:
DJ Strat3gy will be doing a talk titled How
to produce 10,000 hours of live TV and serve a billion pages of content – from
behind the DJ mixer before jamming live with long-time drummer in the
Johnny Clegg band, Barry van Zyl, and Freshlyground bass player Josh Hawkes.
Van Zyl and Hawkes bring their popular Slaves
to the Rhythm series of talks and workshops to Creativate. Apart from a
workshop Songwriting and producing in the
digital age, they will present two lectures that take audiences on a
musically-illustrated journey through music’s past, present and future.
UK-based artist Rebecca Smith will work
with local artists to create digital projections that will use the buildings of
Grahamstown as a night-time canvas throughout the Festival.
INSTALLATIONS
A series of films and installations will
showcase new techniques and approaches, and will challenge audiences and
present them with multiple opportunities to interact and engage with artists’
work. Brothers Donald and Wesley Swanepoel explore the theme of
#landexpropriation through an exhibition that responds to live discussion on
Twitter, while Paige Rybko’s exhibition Self-made
draws a feed from Instagram and presents it in a gallery space. In a similar
vein, Terrance Nzuza is creating a ‘live streaming grafitti’ exhibition called Grafitti Hyper Realism, while visiting
artists from Finland, MSHR, will be bringing an immersive computer music system
in which audiences create sounds by moving through a room.
Creativate is supported by Standard Bank as
a space where artists can embrace innovation and explore new ideas through
technology. “As the long-standing sponsor of the Standard Bank Young Artist
Awards, we see this event as another way of inspiring the next generation of
artists and helping them push the boundaries of what is possible in their
craft. We are excited to see how Creativate influences the arts landscape in
the years ahead.” says Jenny Pheiffer, Head: Brand, Sponsorships and Events
Standard Bank.
As part of this commitment, all artists
taking part in the National Arts Festival’s Main or Fringe programme will be
given free access to Creativate events
The full programme of Creativate events is
available online and will be in the printed editions of the Festival programme.
Booking is open at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
The National Arts Festival takes place from
June 28 to July 8, 2018, in Grahamstown.
(To
link direct to the NAF site click on the large banner that runs across the top
of this blog)
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