Kam (noble)

‘We can determine how we use new technologies to support, strengthen and enrich our cultural community.’ - Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew from ‘Drumbeats to Drumbytes’.

The digital transformation is steadily advancing and showing its effects. But with it comes the colonial legacy, which does not sufficiently involve the people of the Global South in discussions about the future of the digital society. A form of digital colonialism is emerging, which digital artist Eric Takukam and curator Viviane Maghela are countering with their project kam (noble). The central questions of the project lie in the empowerment of marginalised voices: 
How can marginalised voices retell and recontextualise their stories? And how can they regain their strength in order to help shape the future?

With their interactive and immersive art installation, they take up the visual representation of African identities and environments and give their culture back its powerful voice. This is because the colonial legacy has often distorted and misused the image of African cultures – peoples have been wiped out, languages have fallen into oblivion and cultural heritage has disappeared.

The residency for Cameroonian artists provides the framework for a multidisciplinary and multi-perspective approach to deconstructing prevailing digital colonialism by merging new technologies and storytelling methods with African traditions, cultures and visions. Key cultural events are combined with the mentality and diversity of everyday life in Cameroon, its traditions, customs and joie de vivre.

The Beyond Gravity Festival is a biennial, interdisciplinary festival for digital arts, dance and performance, which will enter its second edition in 2025. It is organised in cooperation between the Theater im Depot, the Academy for Theatre and Digitality and the Kulturforum Witten. It initiates an international residency programme with a thematic focus on Decolonising the Digital. In this programme, curators from three different regions of the Global South work together with a maximum of two artists/developers from their region to create a matrix for project development together with a maximum of two actors from the Ruhr area or North Rhine-Westphalia. The residency takes place in collaboration with Enya Obert (digital and graphic design).