This page hosts information around my exhibition AIAIA – Aesthetic Interventions in Artificial Intelligence in Africa, which showed art-research work from my fellowship on the Future Hospitals project at HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The exhibition opened on Wednesday 25 January 2023, and ran till Sunday 5 February 2023, with a closing event on Saturday 4 February. The show opened with work in progress, which developed over the course of the exhibition.
The short video above shows the installation for the central project on the exhibition, Bone Flute, a 3D-printed replica of my femur, made into a flute. The work is a collaboration with orthopaedic surgeon Rudolph Venter, in the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, and flute player, composer and improviser Alessandro Gigli. The work is accompanied by a short film made by my partner, film-maker Dara Kell (see the film below). Thanks to Bernard Swart at CranioTech for producing the 3D print of my femur.
Rudolph’s orthopaedic 3D-printing lab at Tygerberg Hospital makes replicas of patients’ bones to allow the rehearsal of complex surgeries, enhancing the embodied skills of surgeons while using technology to enable simulation. The exhibition focuses especially on this potential for positive human-machine collaboration, amidst the negative impacts of new technologies on human experience – automation’s threat to human skills for example. What choices can we make to use technology appropriately to enhance human skills and experience?
The next image below was the flier for the exhibition, showing the Bone Flute in development, alongside a prototype for it made by Alessandro from PVC tube. As shown in the short film above, Ralph, Rudolph and Alessandro worked together in Rudolph’s orthopaedic surgery laboratory to make the bone flute, using the same processes Rudolph uses for his surgical simulations that utilise 3D prints, while Dara made the video.
Woven through the exploration of my research work in the exhibition is my own experience as a user of public and private health services in South Africa, as a patient and a parent-to-be, during the period of the research project.
AIAIA is an output of Future Hospitals: 4IR and Ethics of Care, a research group investigating the role of emerging technologies in healthcare in Africa, hosted by HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town, and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Press
UCT News ‘Flute from his femur‘ 27 February 2023
Wanted ‘Art meets medicine‘ 9 February 2023
Design Indaba ‘In his bones‘ 20 February 2023
Info
Opening event:
Wednesday 25 January, 6 – 8pm
Sound archivist and DJ Michael Bhatch selects music in response to the work
Exhibition:
Thursday 26 January – Sunday 5 February, 9am – 5pm
Closing event:
Saturday 4 February, 10am – 12pm
DJ and sound artist Nyauist played records along the theme
Location:
Brutal, Side Street Studios, 48 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town
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