Dubship I – Black Starliner (2019)

This project, a collaboration between African Robots and our sister project SPACECRAFT, was created in 2019 with funding from the National Arts Council of South Africa, and exhibited in the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art in Cape Town, South Africa, as part of the exhibition Still Here Tomorrow… from April – August 2019.

Dubship I – Black Starliner (2019) is a large-scale audio-mechanical sculpture based on the first ship in the Black Star Line shipping company, launched by the political activist Marcus Garvey in 1919 with the aim of repatriating the descendants of African slaves back to Africa. Garvey is regarded as a prophet by Rastafarians, and the Black Star Line is immortalised in dub and reggae culture. Dub’s sound effects and use of powerful sound systems transport the listener, and have influenced science fiction and fantasies of space travel as an echo of this desire for transcendence. Read the full label text.

The sculpture was produced using African street wire-art techniques, combined with cutting-edge VR sculpting tools to produce a real life ‘wire frame’ in metal rod and galvanised steel wire. It contains a cargo of plastic jerry cans and wooden marimba notes that are struck to produce sounds, amplified through a sound system and FX units and broadcast out of a star-shaped speaker cabinet. The track is sequenced by a rotating oil-drum perforated with a pattern of holes through which light shines to activate an array of strikers, in a reworking of Fred Locks’ classic dub track Black Star Liner. The video below shows some of the process of making the sculpture.

We are currently moving the sculpture into virtual space and equipping it to cross borders through our project Digi-Dub Club – check it out!