Unrecorded Voices: South African creatives explore archiving through AI innovation at Playtopia Festival

An exhibition of synthetic archives* crafted by 10 South African creatives titled Unrecorded Voices, offers a fascinating interactive feature focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) at this year’s Playtopia Festival, in Cape Town on 6 and 7 December 2024.

The works on exhibition are the culmination of an explorative AI programme hosted by the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) in partnership with the French studio u2p050 and Playtopia Festival, Africa’s premier festival and conference dedicated to Indie games and immersive arts, bringing together creators, gamers, and innovators from South Africa and across the globe.

In October this year, IFAS posted an open call to South African creatives, and a diverse range of 10 artists working with varied interests and mediums were selected.

Over one month, these creatives participated in technical workshops, ethical discussions, mentorships, and creative production with experts. Together, they explored the intersection of AI technology with artistic and cultural storytelling.

The cohort includes Elize Vossgätter, Henrietta Scholtz, Irish Éire Sloane, Lomawa Elizabeth Maelane, Nhlanhla Michael Dhlamini, Nicola Pilkington, Queer.Space, Siphokazi Matshaka, Vanessa Chen, and Xopher Wallace. Their work will be housed in an interactive and immersive space in which visitors can engage with AR (Augmented Reality), audio, animation and film, three-dimensional audio-visual, as well as printed creative works.

Thematically the work ranges from otherworldly, mythological, and futuristic narratives including a fabulated underground queer utopia, to factual explorations of the Chinese in the Cape, men’s mental health and the relationship of humans to AI.

The Unrecorded Voices exhibition, supported by IFAS and the Institut français in Paris, forms part of Novembre Numérique (Digital November), a global initiative celebrating digital cultures.

* A synthetic archive is a collection of information created for a particular purpose. Unlike traditional archives, which build up over time as documents and materials are gathered, a synthetic archive is intentionally crafted to fill gaps in documentation or tell a specific story as has been done in this case.