Technology meets art in exhibition I Wanna Rock Lefatshe at TMRW Gallery

By CityLife Arts Writer

I Wanna Rock Lefatshe”. A sharing of space where two worlds are presented. Artists Malebona Maphutse and Natalie Paneng have each created their own worlds. Maphutse’s world Tsipa Tsipa Healing Ministries, which is in an apocalyptic state. It is a fictional metropolitan kasi Universe coloured with a mix of apocalyptic and somewhat hopeful tones. The universe is filled with architectural motifs from Johannesburg, Sophiatown, Tulsa Oklahoma, Ndabeni, Khayelitsha to speak to this rupture (chaotic moment) that asks for the inhabitants to leave their homes with the promise of a better future.

Paneng’s world ME HD, is a digital world where you explore and experience the subject in multiple digital forms. This world is experienced through viewing, listening and engaging with relics from Paneng’s digital world. The exhibition presents both worlds alongside each other, declaring independence, sovereignty and co-existence that is encapsulated under the title I Wanna Rock Lefatshe, which is derived from the 2003 smash hit Rock Lefatshe by South Africa’s performing artist Keabetswe “KB” Motsilanyane. The song proposes to take the audience to an imaginary place, to a tomorrow where the listener would be freed from their sorrows, it proposes to take the audience higher.

Maphutse and Paneng have come together to bring us I Wanna Rock Lefatshe;, a tomorrow that is filled with imaginaries that may as well be considered in our reality. Through the duration of the exhibition the artists will present their worlds’ histories and the coming together of the two in different performances.

Visitors are  welcome  to view, explore, listen, walk and experience these worlds.

Malebona Maphutse

Malebona Maphutse (b. 1994, South Africa) is a Johannesburg-based visual artist. She completed her B.A. (Fine Arts) at the University of Witwatersrand.

Throughout her body of work she embraces heterogeneous media, particularly painting, sculptural installation, linocut printing, digital prints and video art. In her practice, the artist challenges historical narratives. By doing so, Maphutse investigates how bodies transcend mere existence, not only encountering space but also understanding the politics of space.

Maphutse’s œuvre has been exhibited at major international exhibitions, such as the Bergen Triennial 2019 (The Dead Are Not Dead) and the Stellenbosch Triennial 2020 (Tomorrow There Will Be More Of Us). Recently, the artist produced her digital interactive work XXX NAME IT during her fellowship at the ICA / Institute for Creative Arts in Cape Town.

Both locally and overseas Maphutse has been artist-in-residence, including the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios in Johannesburg (South Africa), the Wiels Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels (Belgium) and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (France).

Welcome to Mamoloyi’s Superhero Universe! As we see the world through Mamoloyi’s eyes, she takes us on a journey through history. We observe her role as a matriarch, a heroine and a constantly looming god power throughout the past, present and future. Within Mamoloyi’s chronicles she presents quasi true, reimagined recollections and premonitions of the past, present and future. In an attempt to indicate the falsity and fluid nature of history and its recollections, she focuses on a number of religious, political, educational and historical institutions and the claim to truisms.

Maphutse’s new body of work – Siyagoduka Ka Flying Saucer Babez: Back To The Future (2021) – addresses what it means to be on the move today, exploring the journey that may lie ahead. It is about going home. Home, in this instance, implies the future. It is the promise of a better future, a better tomorrow in the face of chaos. Home is also the new planet that the inhabitants are travelling to.

The work takes on a science fiction, dystopian aesthetic to emulate the extraordinary nature of the times we live in. This iteration offers a peek into Mamoloyi’s universe through painted landscapes, pamphlets, sound and a sculptural installation, transporting the viewer into this constellation. Maphutse’s world Tsipa Tsipa Healing Ministries is in an apocalyptic state. The inhabitants of Tshipa Tshipa Healing Ministries are called amagoduka, godukas, magoduka, always on the move and in search of home.

This fictional metropolitan kasi universe is coloured with a mix of apocalyptic and somewhat hopeful tones. The universe is specifically filled with architectural motifs from Johannesburg, Sophiatown, Tulsa Oklahoma, Ndabeni, and Khayelitsha. In other words, this then speaks to a rupture, a chaotic moment, that asks for the inhabitants to leave their homes with the promise of a better future. In this alternate universe, Mamoloyi embarks on a journey to protect the sacred time machine from the unscrupulously evil villain Biscuit Head.

He has deployed an alien viral insurgence on Mamoloyi’s home planet as a means to obtain the time machine by distracting her and her advisory board Soundstress Lebzozo and Reincarnate Queen Djaja. Biscuit Head’s goal is to change the course of history in order to create a new world order. Skeem Sa Di Boza are aware of the dangers of an unmonitored time restructuring. They are on a mission to safely relocate the inhabitants of her planet.

Natalie Paneng

She is awkward, complex, and has a quirk to her expression. Residing in Johannesburg and the cyber village called the Internet. Natalie Paneng (b. 1996, South Africa) is a digital artist who completed a BADA(Hons)from the University of Witwatersrand in 2018. Majoring in Production Design (Set and Costume Design) and Art Management. Natalie makes use of both her self taught digital skills and her theatre background to create multidisciplinary digital art.

Paneng’s work has been exhibited with TMRW Gallery, The National Arts Festival, Blank Projects, Michaelis School of Fine Art, BKHz Gallery, Le Lieu Unique and Galerie Eigen Art Leipzig. Along with this she has participated in local artist residencies such as Bubblegumclub Future 76 Residency(2018), Floating Reverie(2019) and Fak’ugesi Digital Innovation Artist Residency (2019). Natalie also published creative research through Ellipses Journal and Artist Research Africa as well as being a 2020 Fellow with Institute of Creative Arts and UCT.

Through her work she explores what it means to have an online presence, the persona’s we develop online and how the Internet and its algorithms control and influence us and our perceived reality. Her video work and art become a way for her to interrogate as well as share how she manifests and navigates the world she lives in and creates for herself. The internet is MTV and she welcomes you to her crib.

The world we live in always seems to push us to present ourselves in certain ways, this pressure has led to me discovering my own playful responses to this constant prompt. ME HD is a digital world where there are multiple forms of me, Natalie being presented as a sort of digital world. The landscape of this digital world is made of HD screens, projections and 3D printed busts which replicate and distort my physical image. It is not intended to be vain but rather the planet offers the viewer a chance to observe my world and to a larger extent, to observe me in a physical digital setting.

Choosing alternate realities and alternate modes of presentation has always been the answer, my work is often centered in the physical form in which I inhabit, my body. Through this work I share internal views of self and find ways to express and present them outside using digital presentation. The video work aims to present internal feelings, thoughts, ideas and sometimes distorted views of self. Each element, sound, object aims to give the viewer a glimpse and experience of the digital world ME HD. Once you have viewed this work, you have experienced me in high definition, you have visited my digital world.

.I Wanna Rock Lefatshe Is currently on at TMRW Gallery at Art Mile in Parkwood.