African Robots: Where Handcraft Meets Digital In A Dub Style
In the theme of Africa in the 4th Industrial Revolution, Sahara sparks in collaboration with koko’TEN studio conducted a workshop on the 7th of October as part of the Africa 4.0 week aimed at bringing together different artists around Africa to share their knowledge and expertise on how they can introduce technology in African art and portray its original stories without losing its nature.
The workshop was held at Buni hub and was able to bring together a group of secondary school students who were interested in learning more about technology and art. Loyola secondary school was the majority of the audience.
Ralph Borland From African Robots (South Africa) was able to give a masterclass and share his knowledge and experience. This was very interactive since people were able to ask and see how Ralph made art that was brought to life through simple movements and sounds using technology.
African Robots
African Robots is a project that intervenes wire art production in the South African informal sector of art with technology. It brings interactive kinetic forms of work; Africa automation such as birds, insects or animals.
African robots are a unique type of robots that reflect the culture of Africa. There are made of wire art that is incorporated with technology that narrates the African story to accept artificial intelligence by having a positive mind with it.
Ralph Borland, through African Robots, compliments the traditional wirework of local artisans by adding value to skilled artists who are at most times overshadowed
The project has brought about employment to local artists who would usually create wired sculptures and locally sell them on the streets as toys. The intention is to democratize the access to technological know-how mechanical forms that have been in use for centuries.
“I was born in cape town South Africa, grew up in South Africa and Zimbabwe and that was where I was exposed to phenomena of wire art”, Ralph narrated.
Since his childhood, he had an interest in making things, and so he made his first wired car toy at the age of thirteen. Ralph then invested his knowledge to create the design for the developing world, and that led him to invest in wired art as it also incorporated engineering. This field blended together his set of skills sound technology, motor technology, light technology, coding, and electricity.
Wire art is a passed-out culture for many African countries, practiced a lot by the children but also used by very few adults as a form of income for livelihood. — Ralph
Insights from the workshop
- Technology should be simple. Adopting from the concept of African robots, these are simply animated objects of wire art that stand for animals with local significance to tell a story in order to connect people with them emotionally by relating the animated objects with our life stories. For example, a little bird project is a bird called a tropic Eliza bar which tells a story of the habit of taking influence from abroad and eat them as is our own until they become part of us rather than rejecting them.
- African robots can be a source of income and employment, African robots bring employment opportunity, youth with skills can employ themselves by making animated objects in a more creative way within a saturated market and make a living.
Thought-provoking question:
Learning from Ralph and in your own context; how can you embed passion and technology for socio-economic impact?
