Cape Town - By using artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality as art mediums - visual art exhibition, “Spiritual Technology” by the Magolide Collective looks at the relationship between spirituality and digital technologies to explore whether this contributes to our experience and understanding of spirituality.
Johannesburg-based artists, Adilson De Oliveira and Mzoxolo ‘X’Mayongo ‘(X’, formerly Christopher), a duo who practise together as the Magolide Collective, currently have their first solo exhibition running at Cape Town’s WorldArt gallery.
The Magolide Collective works to transform a barrage of historical narratives, cultural events, and academic texts – into visual renderings that incorporate performance, digital and video media, and more traditional disciplines like printmaking.
These notions are creatively accomplished through the use of a decolonial lens and performative satire to provoke and challenge the power structures and relationships of master narratives.
Dismantling western frameworks inherent in both global history (and art history) and offering institutional critique therein—presenting investigations that critique the erasure and counter-factual depictions of a true African body and history.
They attempt to rewrite the narrative of the African body (continent) and other marginalised bodies in knowledge production while addressing contemporary issues such as identity, race, sexuality, socio-cultural-economics, politics, and power structures.
The duo names this act “visual alchemy”, a notion related to their moniker: “Magolide” which is a Xhosa term for one who possesses or personifies gold. The result is an Afro-futurist approach to knowledge production that leads to a deeper level of spiritual understanding, insight and creativity.
The exhibition is currently at the WorldArt gallery at 54 Church Street in Cape Town’s CBD, ending on Tuesday, June 13.
Cape Times