SYNTHESISING INDEGENIOUS MOTIFS AND IDEAS IN VIDEO ART: A STUDY OF ULI AND NSIBIDI MOTIFS
BY WILLIAM-WEST, KUROTAMUNONYE IBANIBO
PG/M.F.A/10/52601
A PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF FINE AND APPLIED ARTS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTERS IN VISUAL COMMUNICATION DESIGN AND PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FINE AND APPLIED ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
October 2014
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CERTIFICATION
I, WILLIAM-WEST, KUROTAMUNONYE IBANIBO. a post-graduate student in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, with Reg. No. PG/M.F.A/10/52601, have satisfactorily completed the requirement for course and research work for the degree of Master of Fine Arts (MFA). The work embodied in this project report is original and has not been submitted in part or in full for any other diploma or degree of this or other University.
...... Dr. Godwin O. Uka Dr. Vincent Ali Project Supervisor Head of Department
...... Prof. Emman Okunna External Examiner
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APPROVAL PAGE
This project has been examined and approved by the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
By
...... Dr. Vincent Ali Head of Department
...... Dr. Godwin O. Uka
Project Supervisor
...... Prof. Emman Okunna External Examiner
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DEDICATION PAGE
I dedicate this work to a very beautiful and wonderful mother, Mrs. Grace
Elekima Karibo, and a selfless exceptional sister, Mimi.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Without the contributions of some persons, the successful completion of this research would have been virtually impossible.
I would like to first of all thank my supervisor, Dr. Godwin O. Uka for his patience, encouragement and guidance. His assistance and constant motivation were very inspiring.
I have been opportune to experience two unique and exceptional Heads of
Department in the course of my post graduate programme. The current Head of
Department, Dr. Vincent Ali has always been supportive in an empathic sort of way. His principles and sage-like counsels have been an inspiration to not just me, no doubt, but to the entire department. The former Head, Dr. Diogu was exceptional in his insight as well. However, his uniqueness lies in the way he would go through all lengths to assist any student in trouble. I have experienced this attitude of his. And I appreciate it..
Professor Oloidi’s constant fatherly interest in my academics has always been overwhelming and phenomenal. I am at a loss for words to express my profound gratitude for his efforts at ensuring that I succeed in my academic endeavours.
Dr. Ozioma Onuizilike, you sowed the first seed that enabled me begin this programme. I truly appreciate and will never forget such God-sent gesture.
God will surely reward you…
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I want to thank a very dear friend and “brother from another mother”, Mr.
Anikpe for his wonderful support and constrictive criticisms. Our discussions over the balcony have always yielded insightful fruits that have eventually paid off. The future is getting brighter…
I appreciate all the contributions that Dr. Emeka Okpara and his beloved wife, Mrs Felicia Okpara have made in my life. I will forever be grateful for their selfless counsels, encouragement and prayers. They have been sowing seeds in my life that only God will replenish in due season.
I want to thank my beloved mother, Mrs Grace Elekima Karibo, the rest of my brothers and sisters; Elewamba, Fayeofori, Mimi, Lolo, Dimabo and Fifi for everything. They have always believed in me and never gave up on me despite the challenges I was facing and my flaws.
I specially want to appreciate the significant contributions of two good friends of mine; Frank and Clara, who went the extra mile to aid me in times of need. I also want to say a “big thank you!” to my other colleagues in the department, the typist who typed the work, the rest of the staff of the
Department of Fine and Applied arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and all those who have equally contributed in one way or the other towards the successful conclusion of this research,.
Ultimately, I thank God for His grace, mercy and guidance that pulled me through till the conclusion of this programme.
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TABLE OF CONTENT Page
Title Page………………………………………………………………i
Certification……………………………………………………………ii
Approval page………………………………………………………….iii
Dedication page…………………………………………………………iv
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………..v
Abstract….………………………………………………………………x
List of figures……………………………………………………………xi
List of plates……………………………………………………………xiii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………..….1
Background to the Study…………………………………………………………….1
Statement of the Problem……………………………………………………………6
Objectives of the Study………………………………………………………………6
Significance of the Study……………………………………………………………..7
Scope of the Study…………………………………………………………………….8
Limitations…………………………………………………………………………….8
Research Methodology………………………………………………………………..9
Organisation………………………………………………………………………….10
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CHAPTER TWO :LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………11
Video Art, a Conceptual Delineation………………………………………………...12 Animation as a Contemporary African Art Form…………………………………..16 Indigenous Motifs, its Socio-cultural Significance…………………………………..19
Selected Nigerian Motifs: Uli and Nsibidi ……………………………………………21 i. Uli motif…………………………………………………………………………21 ii. Nsibidi…………………………………………………………………………...25 Adaptation of Uli and Nsibidi motifs by Selected Nsukka Artists…………………...27
A Historical Survey of Selected Artists and Their Works……………………………30
Video Art in Africa: Conceptual Developments since 1980………………………… 33
i. The period, 1980 to 1989 …………………………………………………………33 ii. The period, 1990 to 1999………………………………………………………..34 iii. The period, 2000 to present…………………………………………………….35
New Directions of Video Art from Africa: A Harvest of Fresh Budding Artists…..37 CHAPTER THREE: PROCEDURE AND PRESENTATION OF WORKS……….43 A. Tools and Materials…………………………………………………………………..43 B. Working Process………………………………………………………………………45
C. Study for Uli/ Nsibidi Motifs…………………………………………………………47 D. Selected Studio Sketches…………………………………………………………….49 E. Drawings for Animation………………………………………………………………51
i. Storyboard Sketches for Video art………………………………………………56 F. Working Process For Creative Photography………………………………………..60 CHAPTER FOUR: ANALYSIS OF WORKS…………………………………………63 A. Animation…………………………………………………………………………64 B. Video Art/ Video installation…………………………………………………….68 C. Creative Photography…………………………………………………………….72 D. Visual Communication Designs………………………………………………….80
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CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………87
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………….89
APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………………92
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ABSTRACT
Recently, video art concepts in Africa have been haunted by tentacles of universalism, transculturation and acculturation that threaten their socio-cultural thresholds prospectively. The implication of this includes a muted indigenous voice and the possibility of the genre not being indigenously personalised by
African artists in the course of its development. The intent of this research is to address this. Methodologically, it is strictly but flexibly constrained to video art footages that are sometimes depicted in the form of animated drawings. Nsibidi and uli motifs have been chosen because of their aesthetic and functional qualities. Finally, the strategic approach adopted in the organisation of the study is the researcher’s attempt to justify and satisfactorily contain the vast nature of its subject matter.
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Uli/Nsibidi motifs © The artist…………………………………………………..47
Figure 2: More Uli/Nsibidi motifs © The artist…………………………………………….48
Figure 3: Study for poster with Uli/Nsibidi motifs © The artist…………………………….49
Figure 4: Poster with uli/nsibid adaptations © The artist………………………………….50
Figure 5: Sketches for Animation I© The artist……………………………………………..51
Figure 6: Sketches for animation II © The artist……………………………..……………..52
Figure 7: Sketches for animation III © The artist. ……………………………………...…..53
Figure 8: Sketches for animation IV © The art………………………………………………54
Figure 9: Study for Video Installation, indicating the use of x-ray plates © The artist…………55
Figure 9b: Study for Video Installation, indicating the use of x-ray plates, video cassettes, bamboo stalks and raffia mat as mediums © The artist…………………………………………………………….55
Figure 10: Storyboard for The Lost African Tale of a Raped Vista © The artist……………59
Figure11a: Referenced photograph with sourced concentric rectangular and circular uli motifs known as House of Ekpe and Akuru Aku respectively © The artist…………………..60
Fig. 11b: Manipulated photograph, with referenced photograph and concentric rectangular and circular uli motifs known as House of Ekpe and Akuru Aku respectively © The artist….61
Figure 12: Sequence of pictures depicting working process for figure 11b © The artist……..62
Figure 13: The Lost African Tale of a Raped Vista: Hawk eye, Video, 2011.© The artist….64
Figure 14: The Stirrings of a Cradled Dream, Video, 2011© The artist…………………….65
Figure 15: Roadway, Video, 2011.©The artist…………………………………………………..66 Figure 16: Grabbed frame from Roadway, Video, 2010. © The artist….…………………..67
Figure 17: The Eye, Video, 2011. © The artist………………………………………………68
Figure 18: Grabbed frame from Burning Ice… Video, 2011.© The artist…………………..69
Figure 19: Grabbed frames from Burning Ice…Video, 2011.© The artist…………………..70
Figure 20: Stirrings from the Black Box, Video installation, 2011.© The artist…………….. 71
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Figure 21: Brainstorming out of Cracked Traditional Boxes, 2014, Creative Photography. ©The artist…………………………………………………………………………………72
Figure 22: The Dearth and Bloom of Tradition, Creative Photography 2014© The artist..73
Figure 23: Embracing Our Drifting Sights, 2014, Creative Photography© The artist……75
Figure 24: The Roadway: Scars and Reflections, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist. 76
Figure 25: Shredding Negritude, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist……………..77
Figure 26: Corporate identity for WESTACE Inc., 2014.© The artist…………………..80
Figure 27: Poster for a WESTACE campaign, 2014.© The artist……………………….81
Figure 28: T-shirts/ Souvenir designs, 2014© The artist…………………………………82
Figure 29: calendar design, 2014© The artist…………………………………………….83
Figure 30: Book cover design, 2014© The artist…………………………………………83
Figure 31: Magazine cover design, 2014© The artist…………………………………….84
Figure 32: (a) Westace Inc. web design, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist……..84
Figure 33: Picture grabs from TV Commercial, 2014 © The artist………………………86
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LIST OF PLATES
PLATE 1: Uli body designs. © Pitt-Rivers Museum, University of Oxford……………….91
PLATE 2: Murals on the walls of a central meeting house, © Uche Okeke………………..92
PLATE 3: The Arochukwu version of uli designs © Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria, Nsukka………………………………………………………………………………93
PLATE 4: Uli drawing from Awka, collected by Miss W.B.Yeatman, © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford………………………………………………………………94
PLATE 5: The Ikpe from Enyong written in nsibidi as recorded by J. K. Macgrego© www.nairaland.com/973985/nsibiri-pre-colonial-writing-south-eastern...... 95
PLATE 6: Obiora Udechukwu, acrylic on canvas, Our Journey so far, 200 x 640cm © Simon Ottenberg…………………………………………………………………………………….96
PLATE 7: El Anatsui. When I last wrote to you about Africa © October Gallery, London…………………………………………………………………97
PLATE 8: Ada Udechukwu, the artist displaying a unisex dress she designed, 1993 © Simon Ottenberg…………………………………………………………………………………..98
PLATE 9: Chris Echeta, Truth is Patient, acrylic on canvas,1995 © Chris Echeta……... 99
PLATE 10: William Kentridge, Johannesburg The Second greatest City after Paris© William Kentridge…………………………………………………………………………100
PLATE 11: Tracy Rose, Span I, 1997, © Tracy Rose……………………………………100
PLATE 12: Integration Programme: man with TV © Collection of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town……………………………………………………………..101
PLATE 13: William Kentridge. Blackbox. Video installation, 2005.© William Kentridge……………………………………………101
PLATE 14: MwangiHutter, Mzungu, Video, 2006.© MwangiHutter……………………102
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
African art has been in contention with the growing challenges and influences imposed on it by western perspectives on modern art over the years. Among other factors, these challenges are sometimes associated with the ideal indigenous creative communication pattern and its adaptation to this burgeoning global art phenomenon without characterising a compromised cultural inflection. One cannot ostracize the fundamental role culture plays in a society. It is a vital aspect of a people’s very humanity and identity (Teaero, 2002). In Africa, however, art is wholly integrated in the socio-cultural norms of ethnic groups in nations across the continent; in fact, culture is a holistic part of art and vice versa. Teaero (2002) further stresses on the threats haunting this pattern, this shrewd manifestation and dictation of what he dubbed ‘eurocentricism’ in the African artistic expression when he states:
As an important part of culture, art has always been traditionally conceived, produced, used, distributed, and critiqued by islanders from their ethnocentric perspectives. Over the centuries alternative perspectives
– especially from a Eurocentric viewpoint– were introduced, used and perpetuated through the school system.(ibid.)
There is a salient need for newer ways of expressing the African traditional ideologies and worldviews in a relevant and updated contemporary language for the purpose of preserving, establishing, and empathically communicating the continent’s cultural identity and ideals. It is also necessary for this ideological approach to be adapted to the evolving twenty-first century art world. So far, this syndrome, what the researcher would refer to as an
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“afro-centric renaissance in modern art”, has affected areas in the visual arts such as sculpture and painting. On the contrary, however, there is an obvious conceptual dearth when it comes to the aspect of employing the multimedia and, more specifically, video art as a medium for expressing and projecting this concept.
The works of prominent African video artists like William Kentridge (South Africa) exhibit a kind of universality that was not created to be interpreted from that cultural angle.
More so, they are actually not intended to do that. Perhaps this is because Video art, which is an art that combines music, dance, performance, and computer graphics, shown on video, is not only a relatively new genre in art, but is quite an alien concept in Africa unlike the other aspects of arts that have definitive historical roots in the continent. Interestingly, it is a new and exciting art and technological development that is fast becoming a huge consideration fraught with endless innovative possibilities to both the artistic and academic worlds.
Kentridge’s works are primarily animations or animated drawings to be more precise.
Animation could be defined as:
motion pictures created by recording a series of still images—drawings, objects, or people in various positions of incremental movement—that when played back no longer appear individually as static images but combine to produce the illusion of unbroken motion.” (Furniss, 2007).
Furniss further states:
the term implies to to creations on film, video, or computers, and even to motion toys, which usually
consist of a series of drawings or photographs on paper that are viewed with a mechanical device or by flipping through a hand-heldxv sequence of images (for example, a pad of paper can be used to create an animated flipbook of drawings). The term cartoon is sometimes used to describe short animated works (under ten minutes) that are humorous in nature. (Ibid)
Video art has generally undergone some conceptual evolution over the years, since its introduction in the modern art scene around the late fifties and early sixties. Presently, an avalanche of video art presentations have been created by artists and non-artists alike because the medium itself is easy to obtain and manipulate by both professional and nonprofessionals alike. What separates the video artist from the experimental video consumer is creativity; that is the artist’s ability to manipulate the medium in order to address a whole range of issues in its thematic content.
The integral Africa identity and worldview has been compromised in this new genre of modern art. Unlike the other aspects of the visual arts, the challenges confronting video art are connected with the technology that actually initiated it. Furthermore, the tendency of the art to be abused due to the relatively easy accessibility of the technology by consumers and the overabundance of easy-to-use editing software is another problematic issue. It is important, since this art is still in its early stages when compared to the other arts, that the
African ideology be integrated into video art footages and themes, at least aesthetically.
There are very few video art footages in existence truly project the African ideologies and motifs conceptually. In addition, it was Uche Okeke’s (1961) letter to the then president,
Nnamdi Azikiwe, which stoked the embers that later flared up the radical development of the natural synthesis philosophy in Nsukka years later. The content of the letter reads:
I believe that it is only through the acceptance of ‘natural synthesis’ that the conflicts of the contemporary African mind must be resolved…the African artist must live in his culture and express or interprete the yearningsxvi of his society. He must not live in an ivory tower (Okeke, 1961).
Uche Okeke was not just the leader and founding member of the Art Society
(popularly known as ‘Zaria Rebels’) that was formed in 1958, reputed for their propagation of the Natural synthesis ideology, he also played a significant role in its development. The
Natural Synthesis ideology, as the name implies, involved ‘the acceptance of much of
European media and technique (though not barring experimentation with these)’ and the development of styles and content close to the students’ Nigerian experience, whether it be their own cultural tradition, that of other Nigerian cultures, or current Nigerian life’
(Ottenberg, 1997). Ottenberg, in citing Okeke’s 1960 speech to fellow members (which later became its manifesto) states that this synthesis “was to be natural, unconscious, and unforced, to come from the experience of the individual artists, including from their cultures” (ibid.)
The project is an investigation and creative exploration of the bridge that connects the possibilities this new form of art offers with the integral creative tenets of indigenous concepts in order to initiate a new artistic trans-cultural paradigm. The videos will involve interpreting selected proverbs in staged and animated footages, and will also exhibit a sort of aesthetic visual conundrum that is both poetic and surrealistic. The motifs and sketches will be animated and sometimes interfaced with the abstract motion backgrounds in most of these videos. All of these will relate to the general idea of the respective concepts. The visual effects will not be entirely subjected to software manipulation alone; other creative strategies and mediums will be employed if they are appropriate in ensuring a creative expression of the video art. The project will be deliberately streamlined to accommodate motifs and ideas that are indigenous to the Igbo (that is the uli and nsibidi motif), because of the patterns and symbols inherent in them that are somewhat unanimous and relatively easier to access. xvii
Statement of the Problem
Although there is an impressive display of dynamism in terms of video art concepts shown by notable video artists in Africa, Europe and the rest of the globe, there is still an aspect that has not been extensively explored or addressed in the aesthetic aspect of the footages. The African socio-cultural identity, for instance, has been lost or ignored entirely in these conceptual outbursts.
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There is therefore a need for diversities in artistic expression that individualizes the
African artists’ video concepts in a socio-cultural context, hence establishing a plausible and effective platform for their respective projection.
Objectives of the Study
The objective of the research is to investigate the following issues:
To synthesize indigenous motifs and ideas into created video art footages in order to arrive at themes that reveal socio-cultural ideologies. This would be achieved through drawings, digital adaptation of the motifs to video footages and animations via appropriate video and animation software alongside other relevant media hardware like HD cameras and green screen props
To creatively employ innovative techniques that will bring out interesting results, as well as approaches that reflect the African socio-cultural identity. Most of the concepts will be captured chance occurrences and selected reference footages with socio-cultural allusions, all of which will be digitally manipulated
To creatively manipulate the themes of video art footages in order to address issues from a socio-cultural perspective. As earlier stated, the researcher will use video editing software like Adobe Aftereffect, Pinnacle, Adobe Premier, Corel Video Studio to achieve this. The researcher will also adopt a strategic process which will involve a workflow; that is using the software that will best enhance an effect rather than wholly concentrating on one
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To examine the challenges or factors that have restricted and discouraged African artists from exploring video art from this socio-cultural point of view and recommend strategies in addressing this.
Significance of the Study
This study is significant because it will ensure that the African identity is not lost in the growth and evolution of the expressive content of video art for subsequent African video artists engaged in the medium. Ultimately, since video art is an aspect of visual communication, it will introduce and further enhance the concept of hybridity with indigenous designs, which will consequently inspire graphic designers to explore that relatively uncharted area.
This study will also help to situate the African indigenous motif and values in the history of the art for future reference and provide avenues for further research in this area.
Finally, it will add to written literature in the area of visual communication.
Scope of the Study
This research will focus on the aspect of video art that deals with capturing of staged or chance performances that are in consonance with a specific theme. Also, other approaches such as animation and installation video art will be explored. These strategic approaches are necessary since the emphasis is on integrating socio-cultural idioms, like uli and nsibidi motifs for example, into the fabric of the themes, and not using the technology itself as a tool to achieve this, which on the long run will produce contradictory results.
Limitations xx
In the course of executing this project, the researcher encountered some challenges that somewhat threatened the achievement of its stipulated aims and objectives.
Time factor is one that posed one of the greatest challenges during the course of completing this research. Making of standard animations requires time and usually teamwork.
This is because of the enormous number of storyboards sketches that are meant to capture each frame, as well as other aspects like sound effects and the like. The making of standard animations usually require departments that are created to handle each of these aspects effectively under a stipulated time frame and budget.
The high cost involved in successfully executing this project to its optimum was also another limitation. Many of the hardware and software to be used to arrive at some interesting and highly professional effects were very expensive and sometimes quite hard to find. The researcher had to make do with downloaded trial versions, which had limited functions and time usage.
Research Methodology
The collection of data for this research was through primary and secondary sources.
The primary sources involved fieldwork. The equipment used for the fieldwork include writing pads, sketch pads and multimedia materials like ipads and tablets.
Data was also collected through secondary sources. The Nnamdi Azikiwe Library of the University of Nigeria, Departmental library and the library at the Centre for
Contemporary art (CCA), Yaba, Lagos played important roles in this sense. Most of the data were sourced from the books, theses, journals, magazines, articles and catalogues retrieved from these libraries. In addition, the internet was necessary because it enabled the researcher gain access to significant information from very rare books that would have been virtually
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impossible to reach in Nigerian libraries. Data that involved video interviews and video art footages from notable artists, retrieved from social media and sites like Youtube, were made possible because of the internet.
Five major approaches were also adopted in the data analysis. They include aesthetic, functional, historical, stylistic, and iconographic methods. The rationale behind the adoption of these approaches is significant and relevant because of the following reasons:
The aesthetic approach was necessary in order to examine the quality of the compositions in the video footages and animations based on its effectiveness in inducing a pleasing visual appeal; the functional approach was used to ascertain the importance of integrating ingenious motifs into video art concepts and animations; the stylistic approach for analyzing the nature of used materials and their various techniques and distribution patterns; and the iconographic approach for discussing the meanings associated with the symbols and grabbed stills of the videos and animations.
Organisation
The research report has been structured into seven chapters. The first chapter introduces the research and addresses the background, objective, significance, scope of the study, as well as the methodology among others. The literature relevant to the research will be reviewed in Chapter 2, while in chapter three the socio-cultural significance of the selected motifs will be evaluated within the context of Nigerian modern art. Chapter 4 will be a review of some Nigerian video artists who have made some invaluable contributions to the development of the art in Nigeria. In chapter five, the methodological and technical approach
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for the execution of the video art concepts. The themes of the concepts will be discussed in the sixth chapter, while the research will be concluded in the seventh.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The selected literature in this chapter will be organized and reviewed under the respective headings therein:
Video Art, a Conceptual Delineation Animation as a Contemporary Art Form Socio-cultural Significance of Indigenous Motifs Discussion of selected Nigerian Motifs Adaptation of Uli and Nsibidi Motifs in the Visual Arts
Situating Video Art in Modern African Art Video Art in Africa: Conceptual Development Since 1980 New Directions of Video Art from Africa: A Harvest of Fresh Budding Artists
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Video Art, a Conceptual Delineation
The search for video art literature that highlight on themes from a socio-cultural perspective included many non-African sources, as research performed elsewhere could enable the researcher make valuable inferences about its practice within Nigeria as well as the global art world. Still very little has been written specifically about video art as a concept that portrays socio-cultural associations or connections, especially from the African point of view.
There appears to be a void in the available literature and scholarly responses to this aspect of art when it comes to the aspect of engaging indigenous expressions in terms of conceptualisation.
Before delving any further, it is necessary to note that Video art, despite its approbation as a unique virtual, technologically enhanced artistic expression in modern art, has been in close contention with the technology that birthed it. There have been many speculations by scholars on the issue of it being a medium or a tool. One of these challenges is the terminology used in describing it— video. The word has been used to define so many things. Perhaps this is what Sherman in the article “The Nine Lives of Video Arts” describes
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as ‘semantic erosion’ when he observes that: “Video is an empty word like information or art.
It describes a particular ‘species’ of technology, but this technology is liquid and ubiquitous and it has attached itself to practically everything. The term video is spread way too thin.
When a single word like video can be used to describe so many different things, semantic inflation occurs”. (Sherman, 2008).
Meigh-Andrews’ (2006) perspective in his book A History of Video Art: The
Development of Form and Function provides us with more orientation on the distinctive differences between these two notions; that is, video art as a tool and as a medium. There is much detail in the book on the technology behind the cameras, editing systems and installations. It also situates video art in relation to the other art movements; and it offers an in-depth discussion of video art’s links to experimental music. Although the book contains detailed information on many significant works, particularly stressing on notable figures like
Woody and Steina Vasulka, British video art and European video art, it does not shed any light on the issue of works that involve any association as regards experimentation with indigenous motifs or project socio-cultural ideas.
Earmon et al (2008) trace the history of artist’s involvement with the moving image, from earliest experiments with film, to most recent digital and video streaming techniques on the internet, in the book Film and Video Art. Overall, the discussions by leading international critics on this book focus on major developments in the unfolding conceptual dialogue between artists and moving image media. Much of their analysis begins with the work of the
Lumiere brothers in the late 19th century and progress through the Surrealist, Dadaist,
Russian Constructivist, and Pop Art movements to the prominence of documentary in recent contemporary art and the advent of big-budget art films. As insightful as the information in the book is, the views are universal and negate any contributions associated with the indigenous inclinations of the art much less inclinations from Africa. xxv
In Screens: Viewing Media Installation Art (Electronic Mediations), Mondloch (2010), an assistant professor of art history at the University of Oregon, examines a range of video installations created over the past fifty years that investigate the rich terrain between the sculptural and the cinematic. She also discusses works by artists such as Peter Campus, Eija-
Dan Graham, Liisa Ahtila, Doug Aitken, Bruce Nauman, and Michael Snow, tracing the construction of screen spectatorship in art from the seminal film and video installations of the
1960s and 1970s to the new media artworks of today’s digital culture. Again, the book’s primary highlights include; the identification of a momentous shift in contemporary art that addresses vital areas of spectatorship initiated by technological objects. Here the subject field of vision is literally and metaphorically filtered. This buttresses the proposition that contemporary viewers are, quite literally, screen subjects and the unique critical advantage of art in this regard is that it is also an alternative way to understand media culture and contemporary perceptions. The terms; screen subjects, media culture and contemporary perceptions and the discussed video art works in the book were not defined or analysed from a socio-cultural perspective whatsoever.
The book, Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide To Video Art by Rosler, Boyle et al
(2005) provides an insightful evaluation of video art since its early beginnings that is almost related to the socio-cultural angle, examining its theoretical, aesthetic and social implications.
The book contains a collection of forty-one essays by American video artists, scholars, and critics. It also throws light on the complex, heterogeneous nature of video art with emphasis on its ties to the visual arts and contemporary culture. Although the impact of video technology in mass culture, narrative storytelling, and museum installations as a means of projecting alternative social and philosophical visions is extensively discussed, not much is mentioned about the possibility of creative integrations of indigenous socio-cultural ideas and motifs in the conceptual mainstream of the art. xxvi
Yearwood’s (1999) maintains, in his book “Black Film as a Signifying Practice:
Cinema, Narration and the African American Aesthetic Tradition”, that black film criticism is more appropriately embraced as a 20th century development in the history of African-
American aesthetic thought. This is a revelation of substantive and accumulative aesthetic and critical tradition for black film studies in his investigation of the cinema as part of a black tradition. Even though his insights may seem, to some scholars, as deviating towards a different trajectory in terms of video art, his argument proves a point that there is indeed a possibility of a rich vault of aesthetic values with respect to black film and black culture yet to be exploited in video arts. It also prefigures the overwhelming creative discoveries that may follow when artists extend their video art concepts to embrace aesthetic socio-cultural idioms.
It is important to note here that although this review examines literature that attempt to address the issue of video art as expressed from the socio-cultural angle, it does not mean that prominent African artists whose works have been analysed by art writers have not explored the art. The point of emphasis is that the works by these artists do not express themes from the indigenous socio-cultural angle. For instance, the book “Darkroom:
Photography and New Media in South Africa, 1950 to the Present” (Grantham, 1999), is a discourse on four generations of artists, including those who lived and worked primarily in
South Africa during the apartheid era, from 1948 to 1994, as well as the present generation that has achieved wide international recognition since the end of apartheid. The concept is connected with the title; the darkroom is both literal and metaphorical, since all the video art footages and photography are exhibited in a darkroom and also reveal the artistic isolation created by apartheid; and the psychological and physical challenges of making meaningful
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work under a grossly hostile atmosphere. The major focus of the works in the eight sections of this catalogue addresses a wide range of social and aesthetic themes.
Issues of identity as it relates to the African experience have been addressed through
Video art, though. Bisi Silva’s article, “Doing the Same Thing Differently” in the Journal
Identity An Imagined State reveals the attempts at investigating this by the artists who participated in the New Energies exhibition curated by Proffessor El Anatsui on 16th May,
2001 at Mydrim Gallery and Nimbus Gallery in Lagos. The perspectives proffered by the artists were remarkable indeed, but all reveal the influences of western contemporary art in their concepts. Interestingly, the exhibition, which the same article highlighted, was organized by the Centre of Contemporary Art (CCA) and curated by the author. Added to that, the works analysed in the articles also revealed the same influences.
While all the reviewed selected literature point to the diverse ways through which the genre has been explored, in terms of installations or performances, there is nonetheless a scarcity of research on the aspect of “synthesis”, that is, integrating this art, as in order aspects of the visual arts, with indigenous socio-cultural idioms. The art has been (and will always) contending with challenges ranging from the danger of its being sidelined by the very technology that defines it or the fact that its universality is in a sense a threat and a limitation to its uniqueness and conceptual context. To address this gap in the literature, this particular study is being conducted to specifically explore the possibility of integrating indigenous elements like motifs into the respective video art concepts, some of which are animated. For this reason, the ideology initiated by the Zaria Art Society, which is ‘natural synthesis’, has been chosen for the theoretical framework of this research.
Animation as a Contemporary African Art Form
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The fact that animation is an art form cannot be disputed. Its origin is deeply rooted in art, more specifically drawings or a sequence of drawings or sketches that have been attributed with some form of life or liveliness (Random House, 2001). Animation can also be aptly described as an art of movement, whether it is a drawing or a lump of clay, a puppet or paper-cut collage (ArtJunction, n.d). In other words, the animator infuses life and meaning to his idea by making it move (ibid.). This is possible because the illusion of movement is actually caused by a psychological phenomenon most scientist call persistence of vision. For instance, when a single image is flashed before a human eye, the brain retains that image longer than it is actually registered on the retina. When a series of images with slight variations or changes are flashed in rapid succession before our eyes, the effect is one of movement (Ibid.).
Animated cartoons is an aspect of animation that is mostly related to creative art since it refers to a “motion picture consisting of a sequence of drawings, each so slightly different that when filmed and run through a projector the figures seem to move” (RandomHouse,
2001, p. 82). The early caveman was among the first to stumble upon an idea related to it.
Although, this is a controversial issue, their depiction of the days hunting event as well as other activities were imprinted on cave walls in a sequential order that foreshadowed the birthing of animation itself (Beckerman, 2003). Again, there was a discovery in recent times of a 5.200 year old bowl containing a series of related animations of a goat and a fish
(“First Animation”, 2004; “CHTHO”, 2008; Ball, 2008; Beckerman, 2003). However, its evolution since then, especially around the 19th century, has been phenomenal. As Klein
(1996:241) puts it, “what began in the 1890s as a caricature of vaudeville space, on a surface borrowing from popular illustration, became, by the 1990s, a theme-park on a surface of electronic memory”.
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In spite of the fact that the origin and development of animation is connected to art, its adaptation has a form of contemporary art has been relatively recent. Perhaps, this is because a greater part of its development was largely explored for entertainment purposes. To fully buttress this fact, it is important to briefly discuss the term “contemporary art”. Contemporary art could refer to any art that is in existence from the 1960s or 70s till date. It is often confused with another term simmiliar to it, which is ‘modern art’. In attempting to elaborate on how the term applies to the African context, Ottenberg (2002) states:
The term modernization has also been used in Africa in
a developmental way towards its institution. I prefer the greater neutrality of “contemporary”, recognizing that it involves a number of forms of African art, as I have already indicated, although here my focus is on academically trained artists and their art
However, Art historian Salah Hassan, as cited by Ottenberg (2002:5), argues that:
Despite recent negative connotations associated with the term “modern” in western intellectual circles, the term modern is more suitable for such new African artistic expressions, because it symbolizes the experience and practice the art forms embody. To call them “modern” distinguishes them from the merely “contemporary”.
Hassan was of the view that since “contemporary” refers to “time” and implies
“neutral reference”, the “modern”, which is more related to sensibility and style and is a term of critical judgement, would be more appropriate (Ibid). Also, according to her, modernism in the African context, as it is elsewhere entails a self-conscious attempt to break with the past and a search for a new form of expression (Ibid.).
In light of these two arguments, examining the conceptual aspects and prospects of the subject matter of this research from the perspective of modern art, rather than xxx
contemporary art would be more appropriate. Video art, as well as animation when examined through the lens of African modern art will not only imply a historic relevance which will reconcile its developmental foundation with its African socio-cultural roots, it will also assert and prefigure its prospects with contemporary art trends.
Indigenous Motifs, its Socio-cultural Significance
African Indigenous motifs have, for the past decades, intrigued scholars, especially after the startling discovery that their earlier orientation of any form of intelligence from the continent as virtually impossible was grossly erroneous. It is important at this point to contextually discuss two relevant definitions of motifs. One of such definitions states that a motif is a repeated architectural design, a “repeated design, shape, or pattern” (“motif”,
2008). Another definition describes it as a handcraft design that is sewn or printed, or a
“repetitive decorative design sewn into or printed on something such as a piece of clothing, or a single example of pattern” (ibid, 2008). Both definitions agree on these words; repetition, pattern and design. These terms have features that incline towards aesthetics, and situate motifs in terms of their aesthetic relevance alone. Berns & Hudson (1986) observe that motifs do not relate to one another in any thematically consistent way in their book, The Essential
Gourd: Art and History of North Eastern Nigeria. They believed that their significance was basically for decorative purposes. However, the importance of indigenous Nigerian motifs transcends this description; based on the significant roles they perform in the communities where they are used, they can also be justifiably examined in the light of their iconographic functions. OldenKamp argues that the motif designs on the calabash decoration in South
Western Nigeria had strong insightful thematic implications and made strong statements
(Oldenkamp, n.d). One of her observations was that the gourd designs were manifested in
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seven categories namely, the anthropomorphic, skeumorphic, zoomorphic, geometric, floral, manmade objects and texts.
Motifs, based on their iconographic function and somewhat calligraphic features, equally exhibit their potency as a means of visual communication. This attribute is also very important, since the awareness of the potency of iconography in communication has been in existence as far back as the earliest civilizations of humankind. During that era the means through which type was produced was by scratching marks on flat surfaces with sharp objects. Discovered records in the twentieth century reveal that these types have been developed in different ways, from Mesopotamia, Chinese calligraphy, Egyptian
Hieroglyphics and Phoenician alphabet.
The iconographic features of indigenous motifs from diverse cultures in the continent are a visual testament of Africa’s profound contribution to the art of communication. In some of these countries, these motifs are considered sacred and symbolic, although scholars usually project them in the light of their aesthetic functions. This is one reason why contemporary iconography plays a very significant role because it draws attention to the high level of intellectualism these motifs possess. In fact, to some degree its adoption by modern artist in recent times, have been innovative and explorative. It also reveals the interesting transmogrifications that occur when motifs are portrayed as an intermingling of iconography and sacred symbols in their respective concepts.
In the course of integrating indigenous motifs into their artworks, many artists, especially those in art schools that propagate the natural synthesis theory, have been compelled to embark on research into the ones practiced by most countries in different parts of Africa. Apart from the uli and nsibidi motifs from Nigeria, there are also others like the
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adinkra motifs from Ghana, the Vai and Bamum syllable practiced by the Jondu and Bamum ethnic groups of West Africa.
Selected Nigerian Motifs: Uli and Nsibidi
iii. Uli motif
The uli design represents a system of pictograms usually applied to a given surface, whether wall, body or canvas, for aesthetic purposes as well as interpreting and representing a specific aspect of an individual on which they are applied or the community audience absorbing the imagery. The symbols are simple and abstract, because they are an object- oriented design system. The symbols are also interpreted individually since they are normally isolated in the composition, although they portray meaning that are related to the greater motif. In addition, the traditional working process is usually done like a ritual and somewhat professionally; fluid and in a meditative manner. Most times accidental drips are creatively transformed into concepts. The dye was usually extracted from the pod of a plant that equally goes by that name, which is the uli pod. Once extracted, they are then applied as decorations on the body and wall respectively (see PLATE 1 & 2). In describing the processes involved in the application techniques, Peri writes:
A wall was repaired and primed before the uli wall
painting proper began. The muralist first applied slip to the wall with her fingertips in regular movements in arc
shapes or concentric circles. These repeated movements left subtle indentations, adding to the overall richness of the mural when the uli designs were applied on top. (Peri, 2002, p.7)
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In the early part of the century, uli was a very important art form practiced most especially by women in the southeastern part of Nigeria. The motif defines the artistic tendencies of a community to creatively express themselves with designs that are firmly rooted in their myths and their experience of life in the past, present and future. The symbols graphically reveal the outflow of organic forms from the core of the elements to point, line, triangle, square and circle that are universal to the concentric circle at the periphery.
Consequently, this contains reflections of everyday world as seen by the artists. Just as the inner circle reflects the uncommon reality or ritual reality of the cultural existence, so the outer circle is in contact with the human and ecological reality, which it expresses (Okoye,
2006). Black is the mostly used colour in a typical uli painting, although other earth colours like reddish brown, yellow ochre and white are often included. According to Onuorah, “the calligraphic nature of motif and design interpretation gave room for influences from paintings, drawings and prints produced by other artists who also depended on African motifs for inspiration.” (Onuorah, 2012, p.222). Uli designs have intrigued and fascinated artists at
Nsukka who have adapted it to their concepts since the inception of the natural synthesis theory in the art department of the University. Onuorah observes that some distinct uli designs appear to be reoccurring in the diverse concepts of these artists, and they include isi nwoji (head of kola nut), okala isi oji (half of kola nut), agwolagwo (spirals and concentric circles), onwa (moon), ntupo (cluster of dots) and diamond shapes and pattern (Ibid, 2012, p.222).
Traditionally, there were many social situations when uli is ceremoniously employed, and they include events such as title taking, memorial services for the dead, harvest rites and even marriages. In such cases, the designs very rarely depict a human situation. This in turn reveals another significant feature of uli; one hardly finds any pictorial references to humans,
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although objects like bowls and farm tools are represented. In addition, creatures like birds, animals as well as celestial elements and plants could often be seen in some of these motifs.
Although some scholars have made some research on uli, studies by Uche Okeke,
Obiora Udechukwu, Simon Ottenberg and Elizabeth Peri, among others, have been more extensive and in depth. In her research, Elizabeth Peri analysed the data she retrieved during her fieldwork following the “Hatcher Art Analysis” procedures. According to her, “this is based on terms commonly referred to in the literature of Western art, including: the distribution of forms on the design field, the treatment of line, the relation of figure to ground, the structure of a composition, and also qualitative categories such as the degree of stillness or movement, freedom or formality, and simplicity or complexity in a design.” (Peri,
2002, p.39). Peri discovered through this procedure that uli designs mark the difference between the ozo and abamaba geopolitical institutions of the Igbo regions. She also noticed that although uli existed in other Igbo speaking areas, as well as neighbouring non-Igbo speaking groups, there were diversities in styles in each of these regions (ibid, 2002).
The Igbo Abamaba area consists of the Arochukwu, Bende, and Umuahia.
Arocgukwu design is further divided into two main categories; one where the design appear in the centre, on the periphery and corners of the design areas in the composition (see PLATE
3). The negative space, which forms the ground for the design is well considered and creatively manipulated. On the other hand, the second category is filled with blocks of bold, interlacing, weave-like patterns or repeated triangular and four-sided shapes. Furthermore, there is also a distinct contrast between the foreground and the background. The similar features between both of these categories is the obvious use of diagonal lines either drawn across from opposite corners or through the centre, sometimes dividing the design into two or four segments. Sometimes the borders in the aro designs, often irregular, especially around
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the corners, are usually drawn with patterns that mirror those found within the composition of the design. Other features that define some of the design composition include patterns with endless lines and randomly shaped hook shapes surrounded by series of elongated m or v shapes formed by parallel lines (sometimes associated with the Ekpe secret society).
The Bende uli designs are defined by the existence of hooks, more delicate design compositions when compared to that of the aro. The patterns are also unique; often repeated shaded geometric shapes with patterns that sometimes have multiple borders and irregular shapes. The motifs are distributed across the composition but not entirely focused on the centre, and where they are repeated the scales may differ. The bende designs are relatively more complex than the Aro and have a wider range of motifs. They are also very spontaneous, with lines that are predominantly curved, without repetition or symmetry.
The uli designs from Umuahia share similar features with the Aro style except for the fact that they are mostly based on the hook shapes and motifs that delineate and echo the form. There is also spots and circle patterns that are occasionally used. In all the diverse forms of the Umuahia designs on ebasic feature is common, and that is the emphasis on linearity.
The Igbo Ozo area, especially the Nri regions, has local terms with which they describe uli like uli onume (where a space is left blank) and nkpachi (when something is enclosed or encased between parallel lines). There is a relationship between these parallel lines with the straight-edged, zigzag carved patterns used for decorating the doors of the compound of an ozo title holder (SEE PLATE 4). Ozo titleholders are highly esteemed in some parts of Igboland, especially the Nri areas, and are recognized as individuals with high ethical and social status. The doors and walls of their compounds are usually elaborately decorated with specific emblems that define their offices and distinguish them from others, as xxxvi
well as other features like body decorations and facial scarification. Other parallel lines have names that relate to the cutting action of knives or allude to the ichi facial scarifications mark worn by the ozo titleholders. The ichi scarification mark consist of patterns above the eyelid known as onwa or ‘moon’ and anyanwu or ‘sun’. the triangular shapes in the Igbo ozo designs represent part of a kola nut, which in Igbo tradition symbolizes friendship and hospitality.
iv. Nsibidi
A lot of articles have been written about the nsibidi motifs. Etymologically the name
of the script has many variants, based on diverse backgrounds and other factors. The term
nsibidi is commonly used by the Afikpos in defining it. It has been associated with such
igbo terms as sibi, which is translated as ‘cutting’, as in cutting or carving signs on
calabashes and other wooden tools. Other references include sibidi, or to play as in,
playing sports or drama, although this particular term could mean bewitching, throbbing
heart or drumbeats. The highest of the seven grades of the Ekpe leopard societies, situated
in Cross Rivers state, is usually given that name as a title. But the Efik people have been
credited with the invention of the script, although most scholars suspect that it was
borrowed or bought from another ethnic group, like the Ekoi, for instance. The nsibidi
motif, however, eventually spread to other cultures, neighbouring ones most especially,
like some parts of Igbo, Ibibio, and Annang. According to Battestini (2009:63), among
other things, nsibidi has been described as:
glyphic (to cut), calligraphic (ibiri nsi), having an everlastingxxxvii (N’si) power of retention, is linked to art (sibidi) and craft (nsipbri) of the practitioners (obia) of nsibidi, or the members of the Ekpe society (Egbe or Ebe), who are the literate (nchibbi), the shrewd and canny members of the leopard society.
Although its origin remains unknown, the earliest documentation of Nsibidi in the West was by T.D. Maxwell in 1905, who was then the District Commissioner of Calabar.
However, the general consensus is that it was invented by no one in particular but may have slowly evolved from graphic symbols and body language (mimicry, gestures, dance steps), and possibly from modifications and secret coded communication modes by autonomous
Leopard societies.
The nsibidi motif has functional purposes as well as aesthetic ones. The script is used for recording decisions, facts, thoughts and communicating messages. Nsibidi also is used on wall designs, calabashes, metals (such as bronze), leaves, swords, and tattoos. There are different kinds of nsibidi designs, but the most reoccurring ones are those that have short messages and letters sent at distance. Some are isolated, or simply a combination of signs .
In the early period before British colonization, nsibidi had two purposes; a sacred version and a public, which is basically meant for aesthetics uses by women. The impact of colonialism was not particularly favourable towards its survival as it was deemed to be pagan and uncivilized by Western and Christian doctrine, and as a result the indegens gradually abandoned the script until it was just the members of the secret societies who could decipher it. The nsibidi has also developed into other forms like anaforuana and veve symbols, in some countries like Cuba and Haiti, due to the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Nsibidi was used in recording judgment cases known as Ikpe in some Cross River communities (see PLATE 5). The record in the diagram was retrieved by Macgregor, and is a xxxviii
translation of an nsibidi record from Enyong of an ikpe judgement. These are his translation, according to an article titled Nsibidi: The pre-colonial writing of the South-eastern people and culture, in the Nairaland Website:
Adaptation of Uli and Nsibidi motifs by Selected Nsukka Artists
Some prominent artists and most of the pioneers of the Zaria art society have created outstanding works through the integration of uli and nsibidi motifs in their concepts, although the latter appears to be gaining more popularity than the former because of its stronger emphasis on social relationships. Some of these artists are not necessarily from the region, which originally own and practice these design motifs, but hail from different parts of the country, and even from outside the country like EL Anatsui, for example, who is a Ghanian.
Many have adapted these motifs to different aspects of the visual arts like painting, drawing, sculpture, fashion, and graphics. However, while some of them employ a variety of media, others prefer one or two.
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In the area of painting, artists like Obiora Udechukwu are notable for the experimental, philosophical and contemporary way in which they adopt uli motifs into their works. Udechukwu’s research into uli at Agulu, which he later extended into his undergraduate thesis at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, became fully developed by 1975, after the civil war. He was also greatly influenced by Uche Okeke and Chike Aniakor, who were both his teachers. Based on his desire to return to his artistic roots, he resolved to be committed to his Igbo roots and uli became his choice. Udechukwu also prefers to describe uli as lyrical because he believes that it is a significant feature in the motif because of is rhythmic, flowing features and its balanced qualities of negative and positive space. Some of the motifs that could be seen regularly in his works include the kola nut head (isi nwaoji) and the spiral, agwolagwo, which he modifies and sometimes extends as he wishes. He also introduced nsibidi motif to the Nsukka group, and by drawing images from Igbo culture, he has been able to make insightful commentaries through his paintings on social, economic and political issues in the country. Some of them include the lack of clean water, poverty, and mismanagement of the nation’s resources by corrupt leadership.
The painting, Our Journey so far, is Udechukwu’s largest painting (PLATE 6). There are actually four panels placed side by side in this painting composition, each measuring 200 x 640cm in dimension. The yellow band that meanders across them is an allusion to the sacred python as well as the road of life. The band begins as a spiral in the right panel that unfurls and assumes a wavy pattern as it approaches the left. Udechukwu infuses the uli and nsibidi motifs in this painting in subtle brilliant colours. There is an nsibidi mirror in the right and few indigenous designs from the southeastern part of the country. This portion of the panel, however, is basically empty, as though metaphorically depicting the birthing of the journey of the Nigerian and Igbo people. There are indigenous elements in the band of the
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second panel, like combs, a mask, mirrors, a couple, and an image of a Benin bronze head of antiquity. The next band on the other hand reflects on the Biafra war theme of patience, a chameleon, refugees, images of lack of water, other uli motifs like the crescent moon, the lizard, and the elephant’s claw. The leftmost band is also suffused with a lot of metaphorical imagery; people sitting, a woman with a mirror, a military man pointing a gun, a minstrel with an Igbo instrument, a lady with long breasts, destitute people with skulls and bones.
According to Ottenberg (1997:148): “this panel represents recent times. motifs and images in the four panels are found in Udechukwu’s earlier work, as if Our Journey is a summation of his life so far.”
In the unpublished PhD thesis, Two Decades of Pyrography by Nsukka Artists: 1985-
2006, Onuorah’s examines the Uli motifs used in one of El Anatsui’s sculptural piece titled
When I last wrote to you about Africa I used a letter headed parchment Paper. There were many blank slots in the letter…I can now fill some of these slots because…I have grown older.(Ibid, 2012, p.237). His analysis provides some useful insight into one of the remarkable ways in which these masters used these ancient pictorial designs to produce startling masterpieces (see PLATE 7). According to him there are about thirty different motifs extracted from three different cultures; uli, nsibidi and adinkra positioned in rectangular segments in this linear sculptural piece, which represents a wooden scroll (Ibid,
2012, p.238).
Ada Udechukwu’s fashion designs represent another way in which motifs have been integrated into fashion. The artist worked in hand-painted cotton cloth, batik and appliqué
(see PLATE 8). She depicted motifs, creatively manipulating its linear qualities, in her fabric designs. Having done so many drawings with uli, based on her knowledge of the motif, which she acquired from her husband and other artistic friends, it was relatively easier for her to
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translate her concepts unto fabrics. In some of her later designs she experimented and modified the uli designs she incorporated. She has exhibited these fabrics in some exhibitions, one of which include the joint exhibition with Elizabeth Ohene, at the Zodiac hotel, Enugu in 1990. The fabrics she exhibited during the exhibition where hand-painted works that included men and women’s trousers, shirts, and other clothing.
Chris Echeta, the Managing Director of Century Ceramics, situated at Oji River in
Anambra state, is another versatile visual artist who incorporates uli and Nsibidi motifs in his ceramic concepts. His works are not just appraised for their sculptural fluid, dynamic forms, but also for the interesting patterns, many of them sourced from uli and nsibidi, incised on their glazed surfaces(see PLATE 9 for one of his ceramic sculptures Truth is Patient). He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions and his works are in both private collections and galleries at home and beyond.
A Historical Survey of Selected Artists and Their Works
The plethora of video art concepts produced by artists from the within the country in the last two decades have generated immense interest from global audiences as well as art scholars and critics. Primarily, the impact of globalization on modern art partially plays a role in this paradigm shift. As a result of the increasing numbers of biennales and art festivals, international art residencies, exhibitions and grants hosted by international art, African artists have benefited from these globalization initiatives as reflected in the thematic thrusts of their concepts, which are no longer constrained to conventional artistic narratives. Consequently, there has been a reconsideration on the artistic prowess of marginalization of art ideologies, the inclination now towards adapting to the globalization aura that somewhat revamped ideological perspectives throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.
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The situation of global modern art in recent art trends has also evolved due to the impact of geopolitical restructuring of global order, especially in the financial markets and the digital networks of information, technology, images and ideas (Okwui-Enwezor &
Okeke-Agula, 2009,p.10). Also, Okwui-Enwezor & Okeke-Agula observe that:
The unmaking of a bipolar system of power further contributed to the establishment of a series of dialectical and historical reconfigurations that remapped the cultural, political, and economic circuits which would have a profound effect on globalization in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first centuries (Ibid, 2009, p.10).
The impact of this on art globally was phenomenal; the nature of the works of artists that featured in the several international art exhibitions within this period have influenced the global perspectives of these artists. One exhibition in particular, Magiciens de la Terre, organized at the Centre Pompidou, Paris by Jean-Hubert Martin in 1989, was instrumental in breaking down marginal borders of African artists, because their works were showcased alongside their international colleagues. Other important exhibitions followed suite since then, which helped to further aid in projecting African modern art in the early and mid 1990s in several African cities. Prominent among these are the Dak’Art: Dakar Biennial, Dakar
(1992); Rencontres de la Photographie Africainne biennale, Bamako (1994); Johannesburg
Biennale, Johannesburg (1995). Others include Cairo and Alexandra biennales and workshops organized in parts of Africa. The quality of video art exhibited by visual artists during these biennales and workshops have also progressed, as well as artist who are interested in the genre.
Okwui-Enwezor & Okeke-Agula also appraised some other important exhibition that revealed talents from the continent, especially from West Africa, who exhibited interesting xliii
multimedia works. An insight into the potency of these exhibitions and its resultant impact can be deduced in this statement culled from their book Contemporary African Art Since
1980:
When Grace Stanislaus of the studio museum in Harlem organized Contemporary African Artists: Changing Traditions in 1990 at the
Venice Biennale (a process that was then reprised in 1993 at the same venue, with a slightly amended nomenclature, Fusion:West African Artists at the Venice Biennale by Susan Vogel of the Museum of African Art, New York) the exhibition of African artists in Venice marked a further erosion of boundaries in the reception of contemporary African art in the international field…the trend for curatorial rewriting of contemporary African art on a global scale
began to take root during the 1990s, with several significant exhibitions and multimedia works. (Ibid., 2009, p.10)
All of these developments have further contributed in the increased scholarly and curatorial interests in the field, hence the resultant shift in the historical reevaluation of Video art as a field of study. Furthermore, in this generation, there is an evident expansion of researches, exhibitions, and scholarly writings in this genre due to the startling wave of video art displayed in amalgamated group exhibitions, solo exhibitions, and workshops.
Video Art in Africa: Conceptual Developments since 1980
The video art projects and concepts that will be reviewed will include works produced by artists from different parts of the continent. Video art in this context includes video installations, performances, and related multimedia works. The review will also be done according to periods, each spanning a decade, except for the last. Based on the large number of videos, as well as their styles and concepts, only significant works exhibited in notable biennales, art exhibitions, workshops, by selected prominent artists will be reviewed. xliv
A. The period, 1980 to 1989
This period did not witness much video art from the continent. Perhaps it is because much of the concentration was on the other aspects of visual arts like sculpture, painting, and creative photography; there was also a high degree of experimentation and exploration in these areas. The world was beginning to brace itself to the stunning concepts coming out from a continent once deemed as incapable of producing works with high philosophical and intellectual contents.
However, it was William Kentridge who first began to delve into video art during the latter part of this period. At first the public was captivated with his silkscreen concepts, and then later his drawings. Kentridge is a South African artist, who was born around (born 28
April 1955). He gained popularity for his prints, drawings, and most especially his animated films, which were actually animated sketches. The process of creating these sketches is a meticulous and painstaking process, whereby the artist films a drawing, makes erasures and changes, and films it again. In other to give it a cinematic jerky effect, he gives each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds’ screen time. He also continues this process of altering a single drawing, and filming the alterations at the end of each scene. His animation series “Drawings for projection”, was released around 1989, and one of the popular videos in the series is titled Johannesburg The Second Greatest City after Paris, with a duration of about 8 hours (PLATE 10).
The period, 1990 to 1999
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More video artists propped up within this period; names like Bili Bidjocka, Antonio
Ole, Oladele Bamgboye, Zineb Sedira, Tracy Rose and Kendell Geers exploded in the scene.
Their works were phenomenal, and provocative in term of the themes and the expressive and sometimes theatrical nature of their concepts. Most of them exhibited video installations like the works of Antonio Ole and Tracy Rose, although Tracy Rose’s approach was more of performances whereby the artist uses herself as part of the installation. The video installation series titled Span II, exhibited around 1997, is one of such examples. In this video, which is actually a performance, the artists, nude sits upon a TV set in a glass casing (see PLATE 11).
The television monitor relays a detailed view of her actions. This performance, which was done during the Graft, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale Vitrine, depicted the thrust of the concepts that video artists around this period practiced. In fact, it seemed that very type of radicalism, in term of experimentation and artistic expression that dogged the other aspects of the visual art was now influencing this area of the arts.
In Jane Alexander’s video installation titled Integration Video: Man with TV, which was released around 1995, a man sits in his Sunday cloths staring into a television monitor
(PLATE 12). The footage in the monitor reveals another man, also dressed in a suit and repeatedly adjusting his tie in a shop front mirror, smoothes his hair, and then readjusts his tie, as though in preparation for someone he will never meet. As in her other sculptures and installations, the human forms all seem to appear still, motionless and expressionless, as though in a permanent state of mutation.
The period, 2000 to present
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By the turn of the century, especially around this period, video art had already found its ground, no thanks to the motivating attention given to the works of the African artists involved in it. The focus shifted around this period from its earlier emphasis of video installations to diverse experimental ways of expressing ideas in video arts. New techniques, as well as technology enabled the artists stretch their imaginations beyond conceptual boundaries that had initially limited them. The computer age along with software, as well as smart phones with advanced multimedia features, have now made anything in the artist’s imagination virtually possible to depict.
Furthermore, many new names came into the scene, apart from the familiar ones like
William Kentridge. Visual artists like Pascal Marthine Taxon, and his multimedia installation
Game Station (2002), Grace Ndirity and her seven minutes video titled The Nightingale
(2003), Wael Shawky, and his two channel video Dodge Ram (2004) among others, were quite outstanding around this period. However, there are some artists whose works will be briefly discussed within this period due to their significant themes and unusual but unique techniques.
William Kentridge’s animations had evolved dramatically into animated video installations. He executed two fascinating projects midway into the decade titled Black Box
(2005) and The Magic flute (2005). In the former (see PLATE 13), which was actually installed in the artist’s studio, complete with projectors and mechanical prototypes, Kentridge was investigating three notions associated with the Blackbox. The first was related to its association with the theatre, and the installations consists of a model of a theatre, which houses projections and characters. The second black box, or the central chamber noir, is an allusion to the central chamber of a camera, into which metaphoric light enters the ‘camera’ and meaning revealed. The third is a reference to the blackbox of a plane, which records the
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last moments before a plane disaster. The disaster the artist was referring to was the tragic historical incident of the German massacre of the Herero people in South Africa.
Between the years 2006 to 2007, an artist couple, who called their collaboration by
‘installing’ their individual surnames produced some very interesting video art footages that captured the attention of art lovers around the world. Kenyan Ingrid Mwangi and her German husband, Robert Hutter formed the artist collaborative team, MwangiHutter. Using their bodies as canvases and sounding boards, they produced video and sound installations that address issues of identity, race and self-image. Their interest in identity is not surprising, but actually ironical, considering the nature of their relationship. Also, the fact that Mwangi’s father is Kenyan while her mother is German, reflects this. Their footages were usually mixed with wit, poetry, humour and pathos as seen in some of their video arts like Mzungu (2006),
In My House (2006) and Being Bamako (2007). In Mzungu, Robert is kilted out in local costumes by indigenes who think the white man looked ridiculously hilarious in them.
However, Robert, the Mzungu (another Kiswahilli word for ‘whiteman’) is not so happy with their reaction. The reason for this comes in form of a rhetorical question; will the European think these Maasai men funny when they wear western clothes? (PLATE 14).
The second video footage, In my House (2006), was presented as the premonition of an individual anticipating strings of natural disasters, like a flood and fire in the living room, an earthquake that rocked the house and fires that stung her eyes, all happening in her house.
Of course, these incidents are metaphoric and allude to the consequences of identity issues, and how they rip a ‘house’ (a nation or individual) apart.
The third video, Being Bamako (2007), a single channel video, is a call for empathy in relating to people who are different from themselves whether by sex, gender, culture or religious creed. xlviii
New Directions of Video Art from Africa: A Harvest of Fresh Budding Artists
Prospectively, video art has and is still developing at an interesting rate in the country, many individuals and art organizations have embarked on various types of initiatives to help in further encouraging its growth. For example, in recent times An art organisation in Africa initiated the Project [SFIP], a multi-national exhibition process and a platform for critical thinking, researching and presenting African video art . The acronym SFIP stands for Still
Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy. They embarked on a project tagged Video art from
Africa, which was curated by Kisito Assangni. The project showcased the video arts of the next generation African Video artists from different parts of the continent, and they include;
Jude Anogwih (Nigeria), Younes Baba-Ali ( Morroco), Saidou Dicko (Burkina Faso), Ndoye
Douts (Senegal), Kokou Ekouagou (Togo), Mohamed El Baz(Morocco) Samba Fall(Senegal) and Nicene Kossentini (Tunisia) Kai Lossgott (South Africa), Michele Magema (D.Congo),
Nathalie Mba Bikoro (Gabon), Johan Thom (South Africa), Saliou Traore (Burkina Faso),
Guy Wouete (Cameroon), Ezra Wube (Ethiopia).
Each of these individuals maintains a high profile in the genre, and has exhibited very intriguing masterpieces in diverse group and solo exhibitions, art residencies and competitions. For instance, Jude Anogwih is a multimedia artist and Co-curator of Identity:
An Imagined State. He lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria. Anogwih’s work has been featured in several international art exhibitions and projects such as the Festival International d’Art
Video de Casablanca, Morocco; FestivalMiden, Kalamata, Greece; SMBA, Amsterdam; Old
News #6 Malmo, Lagos, Copenhagen, New York; Geo-graphics, Brussels; COLOGNEOFF
VII, Madrid; Orbitas, Houston, USA. His recent curatorial projects include The Green
Summary at Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos; Contested Terrains at Tate Modern,
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London and CCA – Lagos with curator Kerryn Greenberg (Tate Modern). He is also a founding member of Video Art Network in Lagos.
Younes Baba-Ali hails from Morroco, and is a multi-disciplinary artist. He holds a master in Fine Art from the Ecole Supérieure d’Art, Aix-en-Provence, France. The central elements of his artistic work are sound material and its conditioning. Younes has had shows at Bozar Museum, Brussels; Kunsthalle, Mulhouse, France; Haus fur elektronische kunste,
Basel, Switzerland; Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid.
Saidou Dicko is from Burkina Faso. He is a self-taught artist working with video, photography and painting. He exhibits and screens his work extensively in an international context, including the Design Museum, London; Foto Museum, Antwerp (Belgium);
Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama (Japan); Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon;
Fondation Blachere, Apt (France); Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg (South Africa).
N’doye Douts is from Senegal, and graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-
Arts in Dakar. Although more of a painter, Douts also works in film and in sculpture. Some of his works have been shown internationally at such institutions as Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris; Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf (Germany); Bekris Gallery, San
Francisco; IFAN Museum, Dakar.
Kokou Ekouagou, a Togolese, attended the University of Lome, Togo. His video narratives and installations are propelled by a desire to reflect on the classifications and constructs of everyday reality. His videos were showcased at Centro d’Arte Contemporanea
Ticino, Bellinzonna (Switzerland); Hexagon Space, Baltimore (USA); Galerie Lucrece, Paris;
Savvy Contemporary, Berlin; Raffles Institute, Shanghai.
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Mohamed El Baz (Morocco) explores the notions of borders and territories in his work, especially those that would raise barriers between individuals. El baz plays upon three themes in his work: the everyday, the autobiographical and the playful. The work itself is nomadic and transforms itself according to the context. His works have been shown at the
Moderna Musset, Stockholm; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo;
Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa; Hayward Gallery, London.
Samba Fall is from Senegal, and studied fine arts and animation in Senegal as well as in Norway. He uses the creative freedom provided by digital animation in order to examine and reflect upon human behaviour. Fall has shown his work at the Design Museum, London;
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (Finland); Arad Art Museum, Arad
(Romania); Pol’s Potten Gallery, Amsterdam; Dakar Biennial, Senegal.
Nicene Kossentini, who hails from Tunisia, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts inTunis, the Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg and the Sorbonne University in Paris, respectively. Her work has been presented at various venues across the world: Musée du Quai
Branly, Paris; Museum of Tunis Kheireddine Palace, Tunis; Kunstnernes Haus, Oslo; CAN,
Neuchatel (Switzerland); Selma Feriani Gallery, London. She is currently assistant professor of experimental cinema at the University of Tunis.
The South African, Kai Lossgott, is a Cape Town-based contemporary artist, writer, curator and poet whose personal practice currently focuses on exploring green politics and systems theory through experimental film, performance and drawing, for instance his engravings in plant leaves. His work has been widely exhibited such as the Museum Africa,
Johannesburg; Arnot Art Museum, New York; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Museum of
Contemporary Art Maracaibo, Venezuela. He has been a finalist in South Africa’s most
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prestigious art awards, and is represented in a growing number of corporate and museum collections worldwide. His curatorial projects include the internationally touring experimental film programmes CITY BREATH and LETTERS FROM THE SKY.
Michele Magema, from Congo, received an MA in fine arts from the Ecole Nationale
Superieure d’Arts Paris-Cergy. A key focus for her, is articulating a permanent exchange between her Congolese culture and her adoptive French culture through videos and installations. Prestigious institutions worldwide have shown her work: Hirshhorn Museum,
Washington DC; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris; Hayward Gallery, London.
Nathalie Mba Bikoro is a citizen of Gabon. She uses creative arts to introduce alternative independent adaptations of social life and development in communities in
Northern Gabon. She currently works as a visiting University Lecturer across Europe and
Gabon teaching in creative contemporary arts, politics and philosophy. Nathalie is developing many educational interdisciplinary arts projects and collaborations including ArtEvict &
DNA Gabon. Her exhibitions have traveled internationally, including South London Gallery,
London; Performing Arts Academy, Helsinki; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; Demilitarized
Zone (DMZ) Festival South Korea among others.
Johan Thom, a South African, gained a PhD in fine art at the Slade School of Fine
Art, London. Well known for his performances, videos and video installations, Thom often subjects the body to extremes in a quest to map its ongoing transformation. Numerous group and solo exhibitions from Venice Biennale, Italy; Museum Africa, Johannesburg; Iwalewa
Haus, Bayreuth, Germany; Slade School of Fine Art, London amongst others.
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Saliou Traore is from Burkina Faso. His art practice explores the idea of a reversed development-aid by using video, sculpture, installation and drawing. His work has been presented at Kunsthallen Brandts Museum, Odense (Denmark); IFAN Museum, Dakar
(Senegal); Marble Hall, Amsterdam; Expressive Arts Institute, San Diego (USA); Nadja
Vilenne Gallery, Liege (Belgium).
Guy Wouete is a Cameroonian, who lives and works between Antwerp and Douala.
He trained in Art and Multimedia at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten. His work
(video, photography, installation) is an exploration into the finite and infinite, transcending the limitations of formal academic training by employing a more experimental approach that seeks to push existing boundaries. He has participated in several residencies and exhibitions at IFA Galleries Berlin & Stuttgart; SBK Galerie23, Amsterdam; Modern Art Museum,
Medellin (Colombia); Museum of Contemporary Art, Algiers (Algeria); Momo Gallery,
Johannesburg.
Ezra Wube is an Ethiopian who moved to the United States at the age of 18 and received his BFA in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and an MFA from Hunter College, New York, NY. His works encompass video, installations, drawing, painting and performance. Ezra had exhibitions at Dreams of Freedom Museum, Boston;
MEIAC-Museum of Extramadura, Badajoz (Spain); Rush Arts Gallery, New York;
Blackburn Gallery – Howard University, Washington DC.
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CHAPTER THREE
PROCEDURE AND PRESENTATION OF WORKS
A. Tools and Materials
(i) HD Video Camera:
A high definition (HD) camera was required for the purpose of capturing rich high resolution motion images which enable the production of video artworks that can be seen from a distance.
(ii) Green or Blue Cloth:
A large Green or blue Cloth was essential for the studio work. This was necessary for implementing an effective keying or chroma effects in the editing stages of the footages.
(iii) Softboxes:
In order to achieve and manipulate rich colour manipulation in the capturing stage, a three-point lightening system was employed; a key light, background light and fill light.
Hence, soft boxes and other lighting apparatus were essential tools for achieving this.
(iv) Storyboards:
This involved making quick sketches of each concept frame by frame with pencils, charcoal or ink. Each frame was aptly presented with sketchy drawings that portrayed the camera angle and logical sequences of the footage. It is important to note that some of the works did not really involve any storyboard approach due to the fact that they were constructed and designed directly on the software. This is akin to the approach adopted by liv
William Kentridge in his working process. Kentridge believes that bypassing the storyboard process in his works gives him the freedom to interact in a heightened level of creativity with his concept (Maltz-Leca, 2013). To him the storyboard will disrupt that interaction, that rare and unique relationship.
(v) Video Editing Software:
This is an important aspect of the research. This is where all the raw footages were professionally edited to achieve desired results. The editing process will involve navigating through a workspace that entailed the creative manipulation and effective navigation of some selected professional video editing software with relevant special effects tools that assisted in achieving the desired thematic content of the footage.
A wide range of photo editing software like, Adobe Photoshop (for creating motion background templates and editing animated frames), Corel Video Studio (editing footage),
Pinnacle 14 Studio (for editing footages)
(vi) Sourced Footages and Artworks:
Most of the materials for the motifs were acquired from sources that were acknowledged.
These included paintings, photographs and sometimes footages with rich indigenous uli motifs.
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B. Working Process
There are four basic stages involved in the development of a video art in this project and they include: making a short script, drawing a storyboard, capturing the footage and editing the footages. These four stages are actually grouped into three; the preproduction stage (script, storyboarding and so on), the production stage (actually shooting, directing of the footage)and the postproduction stages (editing stage).
In the first stage, the script writing stage, ideas that sourced from research and observations that have potential to be developed into interesting video art were developed into a short script. The script was quite different from that of a movie in that, although it had a narrative, and did not specifically portray any form of verbal dialogue whatsoever. The visual narratives in the script were mostly technical and indicated the instances where the various effects that will appropriately describe the scenes will be placed, the sequences of the scenes, the ideal camera angle as well as the actions of the subjects in the footage.
The second stage was the storyboard stage. The storyboard is a sequence of rough sketches, created by an illustrator to communicate major changes of action or plot in a scene.
The essence of the storyboard in this instance was to enable proper interpretation and translation of the concept during shooting and directing. The drawings were not really large, approximately sketched into four to six boxes on a page of A4 paper. Spaces were left under each sketched box where the details describing the events that were supposed to occur during each shot, for example details of location, and a brief description of the action that is occurring. The storyboards were mostly drawn sequentially, since they are rough guides meant to show how the film should look after the post-production processes have been completed. The storyboards for the video art executed are displayed in plates at the end of the chapter. lvi
The Third stage is the shooting stage. It is here that the actual capturing of the footages will be executed. The location and the plot will depend on the description and outline on script and storyboards. Some of the scenes will be shot in the studio with good lighting effects and a green cloth background for green screen effect. In cases where the scenes are manipulated stills, green paint/blue paints may be also applied for effective keying during editing. It is important to state here that most of the shots will be captured chance events that may bypass the script writing stage. However, with the help of an improvised storyboard, they will be developed into creative concepts in the editing stage. It is also important to state here that most of the videos may not necessarily involve shooting, like in the case of the animated drawings.
The fourth and final stage is the production stage. Here is where all the captured footages will be edited. The editing will be done with the video editing software like Adobe
Premier, Adobe Aftereffect, Adobe Photoshop, Particle Illusions, Pinnacle 14, Ulead, Corel
Video Studio, Cinema 4D and 3ds Max. Each effect to be implemented in the footages will be manipulated through the relevant software with the best required tool. The keying and
Chroma effects will be designed with Adobe Aftereffects, Pinnacle and Corel Video studio respectively. Other complicated 3D graphic designs and animations will be created with the cinema 4D and 3ds Max. Abstract Motion Background footages will be created with Adobe
Photoshop and Particle Illusion.
The working process that relates with creative photography will also be examined in this chapter. This is because movie footages are often described by another term “Motion
Pictures”. Thus, these creative photographs are an aspect of the video art that engages photomanipulation in a conceptual way in context with this research, as well as depict themes
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that address a wide range of issues. In addition, the step by step process used in their designs will be illustrated pictorially in the figures associated with them.
C. STUDY FOR ULI/ NSIBIDI MOTIFS
Fig. 1: Uli/Nsibidi motifs © The artist.
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Fig. 2: More Uli/Nsibidi motifs © The artist.
D. SELECTED STUDIO SKETCHES
(i) Drawings with Uli/Nsibidi adaptations
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Fig. 3: Study for poster with Uli/Nsibidi motifs © The artist.
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Fig. 4: Poster with uli/nsibid adaptations © The artist.
E. Drawings For Animation
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Fig. 5: Sketches for Animation I© The artist.
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Fig. 6: Sketches for animation II © The artist.
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Fig. 7: Sketches for animation III © The artist.
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Fig. 8: Sketches for animation IV © The artist.
Fig. 9a: Study for Video Installation, indicating the use of x- ray plates, video cassettes, bamboo stalks and raffia mat as mediums © The artist
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Fig. 9b: Study for Video Installation, indicating the use of x- ray plates, video cassettes, bamboo stalks and raffia mat as mediums © The artist
Procedure And Presentation Of Works
Storyboard Sketches for Video art
Project Name: ______The Lost African Tale of a Raped Vista: Hawk eye
William-West Kurotamunonye Ibanibo By: ______
Page: ______1 of ______4
Date: ______21/21/2011
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FRAME 1: Eye stares blankly FRAME 2: Eye slowly closes. Every FRAME 3: Eye closes. into space, Motif shift shapes, design pattern around it continue to design whorls and patterns do the transform… same…
FRAME 4: Clenched eye tweaks. FRAME 5: Eyes straighten again. FRAME 6: The eye slowly blurs, Every other thing around it continues Animated motion around it straighten alongside the enclosure around it, in motionPage:… ______2 of 4for a while… ______
FRAME 6: It reopens, but this time FRAME 7: A bright glow appears in FRAME 8: The eye,a swell as the
gazing upwards. Every pattern distorts the middle of the pupil… enclosure swiftly transforms into a
Date:towards ______the direction of the gaze. swirl. The distortion also affects the animated pattern in the background…
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FRAME 9: A dark blotch appears in FRAME 10: the swirl gradually FRAME 11: The horse rider, now the middle of the swirl as it turns anti- straightens up to reveal a blurry figure much clearer, bucks his stallion. clockwise… seated on a horse… Background animation continues…
Page: ______3 of ______4
FRAME 12: the eye submerges in the FRAME 13: Entire compositions FRAME 14: The eye gazes upwards middle of the bucking horse with the remains after horse and rider dissolve again, to witness a winged revolving horse rider… in the same way it initially appeared globe descending from the top right corner of the frame…
FRAME 15: the winged FRAME 16: The winged globe FRAME 17: The winged globe globe hovers towards the overshadows the space the eye was assumes the central part of the section of the staring eye. The previously occupying, thereby composition, still flapping and background motion displacing it, while the motion tottering, amidst changing background continues… background continues forms and patterns… lxviii
Page: ______4 of ______4
FRAME 18: The winged globe begins FRAME 19: It begins to fly towards the FRAME 20: It continues its ascent until another motion, this time turning upper edge of the frame… it disappears towards the upper part towards the other part of the of the composition… composition…
FRAME 21: With the winged globe gone, FRAME 22: The eye averts its gaze for FRAME 23: The glow returns while the
the eye slowly continues its upwards a while… eye stares upwards again. The gaze. The background animation distorts background animation continues until
radically and frantically… animation fades…
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Fig. 10: Storyboard for The Lost African Tale of a Raped Vista © The artist.
F. Working Process For Creative Photography
The aspect of creative photography that will be analysed here is commonly refered to as photo manipulation. The software used to achieve this is photoshop CS 6. The working process in this particular creative photograph is rather voluminous, as such only selected but significant parts of it will be discussed.
The first example in this category is the creatively manipulated photograph titled
Thinking out of Traditional Boxes (see figure 2) . It consist of a front profile photograph of the artist with a cracked hollow forehead that has the inside part of it painted with concentric rectangular and circular uli motif designs. There is a subtle luminous, misty greenish flare around the eyes of the subject in the photograph, and the background in the composition.
(
Fig. 11a: Referenced photograph withlxx sourced concentric rectangular and circular uli motifs known as House of Ekpe and Akuru Aku respectively © The artist.
Fig. 11b: Manipulated photograph © The artist.
As evident in figures 11a and b, the entire working process involved a lot of experimental and explorative stages, and the artist adapted several references and creative techniques in order to arrive at the result in figure 11b.
In figure 12, the selected pictures detailing these procedures are presented in the sequential screen grabs. The background was the first aspect of the design to be addressed. It actually has two stages in this particular design. Tools in the Photoshop panels such as layer masks, hue/saturation, gradient tools among others were employed until the desired effect was achieved. Then at this point the first reference picture of the artist was located and inserted and blended into the design, using eraser tool and other blending tools. With the background layer hidden, the artist then proceeded to clean off the upper part of the subjects head with the eraser tool. Other techniques were also employed here, whereby the artist introduced sourced cracks, as well as created shades to induce the illusion of depth. Cracks
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and ridges were also created around the forehead. Afterwards the sourced uli/nsibidi picture was now introduced, moved towards the upper part of the composition and blended in together with the rest of the background, using the layer mask and eraser tools. Finishing touches were then made on the overall colour, intensity of the introduced glow and gradation in the background to achieve the final result.
Fig. 12: Sequence of pictures depicting working process for figure 11b© The artist.
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CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS OF WORKS
The video artworks discussed had themes that cut across a wide range of issues ranging from relationships, identity, ecology and socio-cultural experiences. These footages were interpreted with a fusion of indigenous motifs to enhance their aesthetic content and define their thematic construct, especially from a socio-cultural point of view. In others, however, the syntheses were implied; that is the narratives allude to indigenous socio-cultural contexts. Also, the videos will be projected as video installations, which consist of x-ray plates attached to mats and framed by bamboo stalks with uli and nsibidi designs painted on them at its top and bottom (See fig.9).
There will also be other body of works that will be discussed in this chapter. These works, which include both creative photographs and visual communication designs are contextually related to the project. Furthermore, they are also part of the studio work and have themes and working processes that are conceptually linked to the subject matter of this research. Therefore, the discussion and analysis of works will be addressed under the following four categories:
A. Animation/animated drawings
B. Video Art/ Video installation
C. Creative photography
D. Visual communication designs
E. Animation/ Animated Drawings
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(i) The Lost African Tale of a Raped Vista (Hawkeye)
Fig. 13: The Lost African Tale of a Raped Vista: Hawk eye, Video, 2011.© The artist.
This video art is an animated abstract sketch. The footage consists of an eye peering through a mask that is part of it. It is a queer-looking mask, with modified uli and nsibidi motifs fluidly incorporated into its design composition. The eye blinks occasionally and creatively transit into other animated forms like a flying globe, a prancing horse, a blindfolded lad blowing a flute. Each of these will flow in sequence.
Nsibidi and uli motifs that have been creatively modified, fuse in and out of the areas surrounding the eyes, as though punctuating the transitions taking place in the narrative.
The Lost Tale of a Raped Vista: Hawk Eye, depicts the current identity situation taking place within the country as a result of colonialisation. Compared to other countries like
China and Japan that have somehow retained their cultural heritage, Africa is being threatened as the new generation is experiencing a new type of virtual colonization. The introduction of communication gadgets and social media through the easily accessed internet among others has further increased this threat. Somewhere along the line the lessons of the past have been either lost or forgotten as history is slowly repeating itself.
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(ii) The Stirrings of a Cradled Dream
Fig. 14: The Stirrings of a Cradled Dream, Video, 2011© The artist.
In this simple animated drawing, the abstract female figure appears to be at rest for a while. The eyelid beneath her seems to be also at rest since its lids are shut. Suddenly they open, triggering sequences of changes in all the elements of the composition. The head nods restlessly, the waves ripple at the foot of the bed, the motifs incorporated in the bosom of the once sleeping figure change intermittently and dramatically in aesthetic distortions. The figure stirs from time to time but never wakes up completely.
When a dream is cradled for too long, without any attempt by the owner of the dream to bring it into reality, there is a sort of restlessness that occurs within that individual. That conflict within will continue to induce that restlessness until the dreamer either kills the dream or sensitizes himself or herself to forget it entirely. Or the dreamer could also do something about the dream.
(iii) Roadway
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Fig. 15: Roadway, Video, 2010. © The artist.
In the first five seconds of the ROADWAY footage, the camera gradually zooms down the footage of a sloping hill until it eventually rests on the figure of a standing boy in a reflective poise. The next sequence of scenes will depict the boy gradually trudging along a rocky pathway until the frame transits to that of a girl, also poised like she too wants to begin a journey. From then on both frames; that of the trudging boy and the girl are interchanged on the screen until they both finally meet at crossroads. The final footage is a scene of the two of them walking hand in hand towards an unspecified destination. The footage is masked with a brushstroke edged frame and placed in an abstract motion background.
The theme of the Roadway describes life as a journey. It reveals the diverse and challenges individuals encounter in that journey whilst searching for a destination with the promised reward of fulfillment that comes with persistence.
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Fig. 16: Grabbed frame from Roadway, Video, 2010. © The artist.
F. Video Art/ Video installation
(i) The Eye
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Fig. 17: The Eye, Video, 2011.© The artist.
In The Eye (Fig.17), a close-up shot of a pair of eyes fills the screen and is sustained for some seconds. Part of the eye, which has been smeared with green paste, will be displaced, through chroma keying, with randomly changing colourful designs made with uli designs. The scene eventually cuts to a final frame that depicts a shirtless figure in a very dark space so that a subtle light softly reveals aspects of his silhouetted head and torso in grey tones staring at the viewer. This figure then slowly bows his head as the video fades out.
The theme: The Eye is based on the unvoiced yearning by the present generation for the restoration of the Nigerian socio-cultural identity, the Nigerian traditional root that is silently eroding in the face of technological, transcultural invasion in the world.
(ii) Burning Ice
Fig. 18: Grabbed frame from Burning Ice, with Uli/nsibidi motifs: duafe (comb), nkpachi, okwa nzu (wooden chalkboards), ngwele (lizard),
obilikpokpa ,Video, 2011.© The artist.
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Burning Ice (Fig. 18), is a video that runs for approximately a minute and seven seconds. There is a heartbeat at the background, while different other sound effects like music, gurgling water and crackling flames resonate at different sound levels. The first footage depicts the two ice cubes floating on a stream with a little flickering flame in between them. The motion background in the composition consists of a constantly transforming splashes of colours with uli and Nsibidi motifs somewhere around the top left hand side of it.
At the bottom right hand, while the footage runs, an inset of restless little fishes in a little pond that changes colour from normal to bloody red ensues.
The video, according to the theme, Burning Ice, addresses the consequences of global warming in a different perspective. Much of the attention before now has been on the industrialised developed nations, due to the fact that they possess heavy machinery that emit more carbon gases to the atmosphere. However, this video posits that the sometimes overlooked underdeveloped nations can pose as much threat because of ignorance. Since carbon is not only emited from industries alone, many of these nations have citizens that indulge in actions that also contribute to climate change anomalies. Also, as a result of mismanaging technological development, many of their actions can instigate consequences far more threatening than that of the developed nations if not properly addressed.
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Fig. 19: Grabbed frames from Burning Ice, Video, 2011.© The artist. (iii) Stirrings from the Black Box (Video Installation)
Fig. 20: Grabbed frames from Burning
Ice, Video, 2011.© The artist.
Stirrings from the Black Box (fig. 20) is one of the video installations produced during the studio work. It consists of a triangular structure resembling a sound box, constructed with wooden frames and covered with mat. Its orifice is a screen made with x-ray radiograph, while a light streams from a bulb within the box. The base of the installation is strewn with VHS video cassettes as portrayed in figure 20.
Stirrings from the Black Box metaphorically addresses the role of technology in appropriately documenting the incidents they were created to capture. The Black Box, for instance, is an electronic device in an aircraft created for the purpose of lxxx
recording information about its flight. The installation suggests that while technology is useful in capturing the evidences of an accident or event, it is usually not always reliable in accessing the truth surrounding it. This obvious when one considers many cases where innocent persons have been affected by wrong judgements in court due to flawed or doctored evidences. Furthermore, the social media, despite the fact that it has been effective in maintaining relationships via the virtual world, has not entirely succeeded in improving them on an intimate level.
Creative Photography
(i) Brainstorming Out of Cracked Traditional Boxes
Fig. 21: Brainstorming out of Cracked Traditional
Boxes, with original source picture, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist.
This picture, Brainstorming out of Cracked Traditional Boxes (Fig. 21), has been creatively manipulated to depict the effect of dreamy green mists drifting out of the subject’s
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cracked skull, which is all but empty save for the fact that its inside is painted with uli/nsibidi designs. The background of the picture is portrayed in dark green hues, with a lighter greenish glow at its center.
Indigenous tradition, in its original sense, projects insightful moral and social values that have timeless and profound wisdom inherent in the artistic and socio-cultural practices associated with it. However, as this work metaphorically suggests, when it refrains from evolving and adapting to time and situations, it could portend dangerous and sometimes life- threatening implications.
(ii) The Dearth and Bloom of Tradition
Fig. 22: The Dearth and Bloom of Tradition, along with original picture and uli/nsibidi motif, 2014, Creativelxxxii Photography. © The artist.
The creative photograph, The Dearth and Bloom of Tradition, as represented in Figure
22, is another concept that was manipulated photographically using software like Adobe
Photoshop CS 6. Referenced materials like the original picture of the model and the sourced motif were synthesized to arrive at the concept.
Like the previous photograph in Figure 21, the work addresses the vagaries of tradition. Hypothetically, it illustrates the feature of tradition that reveals its dual potentials of instigating negative and positive consequences. Tradition in its original state is beautiful. It is how it is employed or interpreted in particular contexts that define its possibilities. However, this photograph, depicted in the model dressed in a modern fashion, reveals that the transience of time with all of its nuances can affect tradition in a negative way.
(iv) Embracing our Drifting Sights
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Fig. 23: Embracing Our Drifting Sights, with referenced uli/nsibidi motif, “house ”, 2014, Creative Photography© The artist.
The photograph in figure 23 tagged Embracing our Drifting Sights was created in such a way that there is a high contrast between the primary subject and the rest of the background. Uli and nsibidi motifs are synthesized into the left hand side of the face using the displacement map tool in Adobe Photoshop CS6. A subtle bluish glow effect has been worked into the backdrop in order to sooth the midtones so that it can effectively project the primary subject.
Change is always deemed as inevitable. Those who are blighted by their past mistakes fear it because of the uncertainty and unpredictability that it harbours, while others still see it as an opportunity to reinvent themselves. Embracing our Drifting Sights (Fig.23) illustrates the possibility that beauty and possibilities can indeed be discovered in even the most unpredictable circumstances that comes with change. The motifs reflected on the face of the model emphasise the unbridled beauty that is initiated when change is embraced and perceived in the right way.
(v) The Roadway: Scars and Reflections
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Fig. 24: The Roadway: Scars and Reflections, with referenced pictures, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist.
The Roadway: Scars and Reflections (Fig.24) was created through the use of Adobe
Photoshop CS 6. The sources as shown in figure 24, were digitally doctored through this software to produce the final result. The colour mode was changed so that it is represented in dynamic greys, apart from the second picture with the boy in the glade, which is totally rendered in full colour. Distorted uli and nsibidi motifs were synthesised with the background..
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The photograph depicts the fact that the way with which one reflects on the past can affect or “scar” his or her perception of the present and overall attitude towards it, and will invariably play a significant role in influencing the future.
(vi) Shredding Negritude
(b)
Fig. 25: Shredding Negritude, with referenced pictures, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist.
Shredding Negritude (Fig 25) is a creative photograph that was created through the adoption of different tools and unconventional processes with the software Adobe Photoshop
CS 6 (See fig.25). The background was totally created with the relevant tools with the software. Tools and plug-ins like layer masks, colour blend modes, alpha channels, alongside cropping, eraser and gradient tools, filter among others were very significant in this regard.
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The sources like the picture of the subject, mechanical engine part and the uli motif were all sourced from the internet and doctored into the composition.
The theme examines the current thrust of development in the twenty-first century and its effect on the African indigenous socio-cultural and artistic heritage and identity. The whole concept of the work is aptly captured in the poem that goes by the same title,
“Shredding Negritude”, which states thus:
Shredding Negritude
…And you thought
They still sing the same old songs, don’t you?
And dance and talk
Like they used to…
Well,
Listen again…
The scarred symphony of ancient rites
Still moan in the stifling of today’s pace
They are the masked masks
We clothe our hidden selves in
They are the African muses
We console ourselves with,
They are the brooding winds of un-change
We soothe ourselves with
Negritude is dark
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Not black
The stark truth
Unmasked
The bleak marked proof
Untracked
We bask
In the discordant groove
Of our whirling thoughts
Floundering like dimming wisps
To yesterday’s nostalgic calls
That no longer has a rhythm
For tomorrow’s today
In the shredding
Of this gaping foresight
The future still brawls
In modern mechanical soul-squalls…
- William-West, Kurotamunonye I.
B. Visual Communication Designs
(i) Corporate Identity/ Logo
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Fig. 26: Corporate identity for WESTACE Inc., 5’ x 7”, 2014.© The artist.
The above logo in figure 26 was designed for the corporate identity, WESTACE incorporated. The predominant colours used for the entire composition are primarily warm colours, apart from the blue square 3D icon at its centre. The symbol that is placed at the centre of the sphere is an eccentric stylized anagram reflecting the Acronym of WESTACE.
The red triangular dent symbolizes the thrust of the company in ensuring that the clients expectations are satisfactorily met.
The lower part of the composition has been suffused with graphic design, alongside the name and slogan and website of the company. Around both side of the orange curve, nsibidi and uli motifs have been integrated to enhance the aesthetic effect of the entire design and to associate it with a socio-cultural identity.
(ii) Poster
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Fig. 27: Poster for a WESTACE campaign on female circumcision, 36’ x
48”, 2014.© The artist.
This selected poster (Figure 27) was designed with Adobe Photoshop. The size is about 36” x 48”, and consists of an abstract diagram of a semi-nude maiden staring at a background riddled with motifs weaving in and out of curvilinear lines.
(iii) T-Shirt/Souvenir Designs
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Fig. 28: T-shirts/ Souvenir designs, 2014.© The artist.
(iv) Calendar design
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Fig. 29: Calendar design, 2014.© The artist.
(v) Book cover design
Fig. 30: Book cover design, 2014.© The artist.
(vi) Magazine Design
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Fig. 31: Magazine cover design, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist.
(vii) Website Design
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\
Fig. 32: Westace Inc. web design with pictures of Index, About, Gallery, Blog and Contact pages, 2014.© The artist.
(viii) Television Commercial
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Fig. 33: Picture grabs from TV Commercial depicting from clockwise, the intro, framed drawings and paintings fading in and out of the background, motion graphics, and panaromic screen with the entire gallery of WESTACE drifting across, 2014, Creative Photography.© The artist.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
The fact that there is a techno-cultural revolution in this twenty-first century is undisputed. However, this trend has politicised cultural and artistic practice through everyday access to new media. Furthermore, the pervasive feature of this technology has challenged our preconceived perception on privacy, surveillance and ownership, the dominance of
Western media in globalisation, as well as the privilege of access in the developed world. For some unexplained reasons, modern African art has been for a while relegated to genres in the visual arts like painting, sculpture and, in some rare cases, ceramics or fashion by art scholars and academicians. Although many would point out that this is probably because it is still a virgin area and must be offered a somewhat probative scholarly approach while it develops, the implication of this perspective is a threat to its prospective preservation and the systematic record of its progress. Consequently, the potential of Africans to express themselves through this media is yet to be adequately accounted for in relative terms. Despite
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the fact that several bodies and organizations within the country and continent at large have been attempting to encourage its development and propagation, much remains to be done in adequately researching the creative energy in Africa, especially within the last decade.
In the light of the globalization syndrome steering the new drift of contemporary art, the thrust of this thesis, which is integrating indigenous motifs into the concept of this genre may seem somewhat backdated and conceptually marginalized. But if the issues of identity as a process, a rite of passage, towards developing that attitude of embracing universality, is anything to go by, then this study may demand some degree of scholarly relevance and justification in this regard. Besides, before any individual can embrace and accept others, there is that necessity of self-acceptance and recognition. It is our socio-cultural identity that forms the adhesive that intensifies the bonding with other alien cultures in the spirit of globalization.
This research was strategically undertaken. The related literature reviewed revealed lapses that further supported its significance of adopting this approach in video art. Thus, it was necessary to understand the nature of the motifs under study, their socio-cultural significances and areas in the visual arts where they have been explored. An examination of the selected significant contributions of visual artists from the continent, in progressive periods was necessary to deduce the possible direction the art is taking and what needs to be done to either encourage or change it.
Overall, from the findings of the research, as well as in the course of executing the studio works, the need for a structure for this new form of art that would properly initiate its development was re-affirmed. The conceptual possibilities are endless and significant. This is not just for aesthetic reasons alone but for the purpose of directing attention to the ignored
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idiosyncratic readings of African video art in a socio-cultural context and its thematic concerns by not just the general viewing public, but also by scholars and academicians alike.
REFERENCES
Ball, R. (2008). Oldest Animation Discovered In Iran. Retrieved September 7, 2014, from Animation Magazine: http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/8045
Beckerman, H. (2003). Animation: The Whole Story. New York: Allworth Press. Retrieved September 8, 2014, from http://books.google.com/books?id=EjW6cCE4v1QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=A nimation:+the+whole+story
Berns, M.C & Hudson, R.R. (1986). The Essential Gourd: Art and History of North Eastern Nigeria. Los Angeles: University of California, Museum of Cultural History.
“CHTHO produces documentary on world’s oldest animation”. (2008). Tehran Times. Retrieved September 7, 2014, from: http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=164429
Eamon, C., Newman, M. et al (2008). Film and Video Art. S. Comer, (Ed.). Oklahoma: Tate Publishing. Enwezor, O. & Okeke-Agulu, C. (2009). Contemporary African Art Since 1980. Bolognia: Grafiche Damiani. Enwezor, O. & Okeke-Agulu, C. (2009). Contemporary African Art Since 1980. Bolognia: Grafiche Damiani. “First Animation of the World Found In Burnt City, Iran”. (2004). Iran News, Persian Journal Iranian Farsi news & Iran news paper. Retrieved September 7, 2014, from http://www.iranian.ws/cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/2/5191
Furniss, M. (2007). “Animation.” Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation.
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Grantham, .T.( 2009). Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa, 1950 to the Present. Virginia: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Klein, Norman M. (1996). “Seven Minutes: The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon”. In Vivian Sobchack (ed) Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation in the Culture of Quick Change.
Maltz-Leca, L (2013). “Process/Procession: William Kentridge and the Process of Change”. Art and Architecture Journals › The Art Bulletin. Retrieved 12 September, 2014 from www.questia.com
Mondloch, K. (2010). In Screens: Viewing Media Installation Art (Electronic Mediations). Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Meigh-Andrews, C. (2006). A History of Video Art: The Development of Form and Function. Oxford: Berg Publishers. “Motif,” (2008). Microsoft Encarta 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation.
Okoye, C. (2006). Magic Lines of Uli Art Style. Retrieved September 21, 2011 from http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/magic-lines-of-uli-art-style- 39320.html Oldenkamp, C. (n.d). “Cultural Nigeria—the Calabash”. Retrieved September, 11, 2014 from http://www.uni.edu/gai/Nigeria/Lessons/Calabash.html
Onuorah, C. (2012). Two Decades of Pyrography by Nsukka Artists: 1985-2006. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. Department of Fine and Applied Arts. University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Osa, E. (2001). The Evolution of the Concept of Natural Synthesis. In Uso-Nigeria Journal of Art Vol. 3 1 & 2 pp 52-60 as cited by Ademuleya, B.A. 2003: in “Synthesis: Between Onabolu, Enwonwu and the Zarianists” in Triumph of a Vision: an Anthology on Uche Okeke and Modern Art in Nigeria, Ikwuemesi, K. C. Ed. Ottenberg, S. (1997). New Traditions from Nigeria: Seven Artists of the Nsukka Group. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Random House, Inc. (2001). Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. New York: Random House, Inc.
Rosler, M.; Boyle, D. et al (2005).Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide to Video Art. D. Hall, Sally J. Fifer(Ed.). Teaero, T.F. (2001) Indigenous education and some important cultural values in Kiribati. Paper presented at the 25th Annual Conference of the Pacific Circle Consortium. Christchurch, New Zealand. 26-28 September 2001. Wilder, J. B. (2007).Art history for dummies. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing.
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Yearwood, G. L. (1999). Black Film as a Signifying Practice: Cinema, Narration and the African American Aesthetic Tradition. New Jersey: Africa World Press.
APPENDIX
PLATES
PLATE 1: Uli body designs. E.H Duckworth, possiblyxcix from Arochukwu, n.d © Pitt-Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
PLATE 2: Murals on the walls of a central meeting house, Earth Srine, Otenyi Village, Nimo. 1993, dimensions Unknown. © Uche Okeke
c
PLATE 3: The Arochukwu version of uli designs, collected by the Rev. J. Beattle, ca.1930. Uli dye on paper, 19 x 17.4cm.© Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria, Nsukka ci
PLATE 4: Uli drawing from Awka, collected by Miss W.B.Yeatman, ca.1930. Blue ink on transparent paper. 33.5 x 21.0 © Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
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PLATE 5: The Ikpe from Enyong written in nsibidi as recorded by J. K. Macgrego© www.nairaland.com/973985/nsibiri-pre-colonial-writing- south-eastern
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PLATE 6: Obiora Udechukwu, acrylic on canvas, Our Journey so far, 200 x 640cm © Simon Ottenberg
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PLATE 7: El Anatsui. When I last wrote to you about Africa I used a letter headed parchment Paper. There were many blank slots in the letter…I can now fill some of these slots because…I have grown older. © October Gallery, London
PLATE 8: Ada Udechukwu, the artist displaying a unisex dress she designed, 1993 © Simon Ottenberg
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PLATE 9: Chris Echeta, Truth is Patient, acrylic on canvas,1995 © Chris Echeta
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PLATE 10: William Kentridge, Johannesburg The Second greatest City after Paris, 1989, 16mm animated film transferred to video, 8:2 mins.
PLATE 11: Tracy Rose, Span I, 1997, Performance nd installation at Graft, 2 Johannesburg Biennale Vitrine, Television monitor, human hair, body, dimensions invariable© Tracy Rose
.
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PLATE 12: Integration Programme: man with TV, 1995. Plaster, oil paint, clothing, found objects and video recording. 138 x 100 x 220cm© Collection of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town.
PLATE 13: William Kentridge. Blackbox. Video installation, 2005.© William Kentridge.
PLATE 14: MwangiHutter, Mzungu, Video, 2006.© MwangiHutter
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