SPACECRAFT is the sister project to African Robots, focused on science fiction subjects, and extending the history of wire artists’ observation of vehicles to a fantasy setting. It plays on the similarities between old school computer graphic ‘wire frame’ – especially seen in the first vector arcade games such as Asteroids (1979) or Star Wars (1983) – and 3D dimensional wire objects made by hand.
Like African Robots, we are playing with the viral potential of new designs to spread through the street wire art network if successful at finding a market.
This label text from the exhibition of work from the project at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in 2017 gives a good overview of the idea and what we see the project doing. And you can read a frank assessment of the work by African Robots founder Ralph Borland in an article for the Journal of Futures Studies here: SPACECRAFT: A Southern Interventionist Art Project (2019).
On this site we’re hosting descriptions of a range of SPACECRAFT work, including large scale projects produced in collaboration with African Robots.
To enter the fictional world of the project and buy some space-art visit spacecraft.africa
Dubship I – Black Starliner (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 more.
DS Tableau
DS Tableau is a large-scale sculptural installation with animated lights and text-scrollers, installed at the entrance to the local offices of an international corporation in Cape Town, South Africa. Executed with Southern African street wire artists who are highly skilled at constructing accurate, complex designs in galvanised steel wire, it refers to the history of old school computer and arcade games. Read more.