Francois Knoetze

In fabricating a fictional institute and its archive, the artists explore and imagine vernacular technological practices operating across the African continent.

Part of a series of 4 films, Kinshasa (2018), Shenzhen (2019), New York (2019) and Dakar (2018), the project explores the relationship between digital technology, cybernetics, colonialism and the re-enchanted notion of a Non-Aligned Humanist Utopia. The four films of Core Dump are rhizomatic assemblages of found footage, performance documentation and recorded interviews that form narrative portraits of the uncertainty in the nervous system of the digital earth. The films are fragmented arrangements of images and sounds, with each chapter forming links across geographic and temporal discontinuities.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a rare earth mineral that is essential in the production of technologies. In this hybrid documentary, South African artists Francois Knoetze and Amy Louise Wilson, together with Congolese historian Joe-Yves Salankang Sa-Ngol, trace the trans-continental journey of this precious metal: from its violent extraction in the mines of DRC to its sale on global stock markets. The Rock Speaks weaves a complex contemplation on an urgent ecological crisis that is fuelled by obscene labour practices that our technological systems demand.

Part of a series of 4 films, Kinshasa (2018), Shenzhen (2019), New York (2019) and Dakar (2018), the project explores the relationship between digital technology, cybernetics, colonialism and the re-enchanted notion of a Non-Aligned Humanist Utopia. The four films of Core Dump are rhizomatic assemblages of found footage, performance documentation and recorded interviews that form narrative portraits of the uncertainty in the nervous system of the digital earth. The films are fragmented arrangements of images and sounds, with each chapter forming links across geographic and temporal discontinuities.

It is general knowledge that the Yanks dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima, but where did the uranium come from that gave it its power? From the Congo, explains this VR experience that takes you to the Shinkolobwe mine where Congolese miners excavate the radiation-rich material without protective equipment. This marks the start of a journey into deeply buried histories: alternatives to the optimistic, post-colonial Western perspectives. Underground proves to be a memory palace of sorts – the various spaces providing contact with history. Grasping objects from that world gives rise to rich collages of archival materials, personal statements, dreams and memories. In this way, the work – a collaboration between historians from various African countries and creative makers – poses the question: what is the true toll of progress?