Fak’ugesi Festival: ‘A digital window into the world we want to live in’
The ninth edition of the Fak’ugesi Festival, under the theme From Now On, aims at zoning in on Africa’s digital future post COVID-19 and lessons that can be derived from the pandemic.
Fak’ugesi Festival’s 2022 theme is #FromNowOn. @DocFilmmakersSA
JOHANNESBURG – Fak’ugesi Festival hosts its ninth edition this month, and under the theme From Now On, the event aims at zoning in on Africa’s digital future post COVID-19 and lessons that can be derived from the pandemic.
“The pandemic helped move forward attitudes to technology and innovation in Africa and especially in South Africa in a major way. Suddenly online shopping became a major alternative, digital content consumption became normalised,” said the festival’s creative director, Eduardo Cachucho.
“Some of the more negative effects (of COVID-19) were around how quickly these pivots had to be made. Many people suffered burnout, mental distress and more. In our 2022 theme, we are trying to learn from this moment and look to build the digital future we want to have,” added Cachucho.
Did you know that @TshimologongIT is the co-founder & organiser for the Fak’ugesi Festival? Yes, we’re part of the family that brings Fak’ugesi to life each year! Fakugesi found its home in 2014 when we co-founded the festival with @WitsUniversity School of Arts.
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Fak’ugesi Festival (@fakugesi) September 19, 2022
Cachucho noted the difficulty of “competing with” a digital landscape such as Silicone Valley, owing to unequal access to investment and resources.
“Where we do have influence is on the creative and artistic side of the coin, African narratives, stories and ideas are pushing limits and creating major interest worldwide in the tales and thoughts we have to share. In fact, there is so much appetite that there really aren’t enough professionals out there to fill the demand,” said Cachucho to Eyewitness News.
Founded in 2014 as a collaboration between Wits University’s Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct and the Wits School of Arts’ Digital Arts Department, the festival takes as its starting point the idea that for innovation with technology to succeed, a strong connection needs to be made between African cultural practices and creative encounters.
“Art has always been at the forefront of technology, from early painters who were developing new techniques to make colours that never existed before, to video artists being some of the first to use online video works, creatives have always been at the forefront of experimentation,” explained Cachucho.
READ: Fak’ugesi festival’s 9th edition to focus on Africa’s digital future post covid
This ideal collaboration, with African digital innovation at its heart, sees us at Tshimologong Precinct not only hosting the event but organising it as well. We are able to do this with the advisory support of our valued co-founder, @witsDigitalArt.
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Fak’ugesi Festival (@fakugesi) September 19, 2022
The festival’s creative director recalls the first ever Fak’ugesi Festival he joined.
“In 2016, had an amazing video game showcase, one of the games was Gorn, a South African VR game, and really one of the first major VR games in the world. They set me up in the VR battle simulation – the game started, and a creature charged toward me on the attack. I had such a shocked reaction that I started running in the opposite direction, beginning to pull out all the cables and resulting in the team pinning me down to stop damaging the entire setup. That was eye-opening to the power of VR experiences.”
“As a festival, our role is very particularly set up as a window into the world we want to live in and create. The creative industries are the largest growing sectors of many countries and Fak’ugesi works to make digital creative practice a recognised space in order to get better support from industry and the government which over time will help to grow the industry at large,” he concluded.
The BASA award was granted for the recognition of Tshimologong Precinct’s commitment to the arts in South Africa in the form of advocacy and awareness initiatives and/or direct support of the arts in collaboration with Wits Digital Arts.
And finally we come to the Chairpersons Award. This years Award goes to Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct for the Fakugesi African Digital Innovation Festival #LightsUp @BASA25 #BetterFutures pic.twitter.com/FzpNVbHde4
Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) (@basa_news) August 29, 2022
This year’s edition comes on the back of Tshimologong’s recent win – the 2022 honorary Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) Chairperson’s Award for hosting the festival since 2014.
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