The UK-SA Chair in Digital Humanities, held by Prof. Premesh Lalu, is welcoming international scholars to Cape Town in November to attend a three-day roundtable at Iyatsiba Lab in Woodstock.
This workshopping of ideas will help inform the way forward on a long-term joint research programme between the British Academy and South Africa’s National Research Foundation. This newly awarded Digital Humanities Chair engages with the co-evolution of the human and technology under an umbrella term, ‘Culture & Technics’. Its thematic structure is broadly conceived for the next few years to run along four interconnected lines: tech & the urban; tech & aesthetics; tech & digital arts; and tech & the university.
This inaugural workshop gathers together invited experts from around the world whose work variously operates at the intersection of technology and aesthetics, in conversation with research fellows and staff at UWC’s Centre for Humanities Research – a postgraduate interdisciplinary hub. Three days of dialogue will be dispersed with visits to museums, art studios and a public art walk in the city centre, led by Kim Gurney, to contextualise debates. This includes a visit to the studio of artist Igshaan Adams and Ralph Borland. The idea is to cross-pollinate disciplinary views and bring to life the meaning of ‘iyatsiba’ (‘it is jumping’), the concilience that is possible when different modes of sense-making come together.
John Mowitt opens workshop proceedings with discussion around the subjection of human agency. Erica Fretwell will offer a prompt on psychophysics, race and aesthetics – the concerns of her latest book. Anindita Banerjee will lead with ‘frugal innovation, imperfect worldmaking’ and Abdeslam Ziou Ziou will engage on psychiatric archives and art. Ralph Borland and Adwoa Ankoma will lead a discursive session about thinking technics in the public sphere.
A few days prior, a group exhibition Tales of History Retold, co-curated by Kim Gurney and Carlyn Strydom, is opening at Iyatsiba Gallery, supported by the Chair in Digital Humanities. In this exhibition, eight artists have created artworks in response to an artefact they have selected from the archive of Cape Town’s oldest arts association and non-profit gallery, the Association for Visual Arts (AVA). Featuring: Alka Dass, Hasan Essop, Husain Essop, Ange-Frédéric Koffi, Kitso Lelliott, Emma Minkley, Mandisi Nkomo and Scott Eric Williams. The exhibition project includes a bespoke limited edition zine created by Williams, a digital catalogue of artworks, and curatorial walkabouts open to the public – to be advertised.
The exhibition opens on Wednesday 5 November at 18h00, with Olga Speakes (AVA director) and Premesh Lalu (CHR) as speakers. It runs until 28 November at Iyatsiba Gallery, 66 Greatmore Street, week days (09h00-16h00) and Saturdays (10h00-13h00). On Saturday 8 November, there is a public zine-making workshop at Iyatsiba Lab led by Scott Eric Williams – details to follow.