The Techno Dandy©™ – Self-portrait 3 | Photo credit: Ashley Walters (2015)
Maurice Mbikayi: The Techno Dandy©™
Maurice Mbikayi (Dem. Rep. of Congo, 1947 – ), styled as The Techno Dandy©™, re-appropriates discarded computer parts to create sculptures and costumes to be worn during performances, imagining a world in which e-waste is refurbished and recycled.
The artist is inspired by the Sapeurs, a subcultural movement from the DRC. Sapeur is a word derived from the Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes (SAPE), or the Society of Ambiance-makers and Persons of Elegance. The self-confidence of the Sapeurs in their outfits around Brazzaville and Kinshasa, are a statement of their resistance to poverty.
Works by The Techno Dandy©™ in Tokara Wine Lounge | photo credit: Les Hammond (2015)
In his various Techno suits and sculptures, like Girl with leather toy 1 and 2, Mbikayi depicts figures who, like the people of Africa, in the midst of environmental, social, and political crises, produce radical new approaches to reinvention and change, while playfully challenging the viewer to consider their own role in consumerism and the ‘life cycles’ of waste.
The suits act as pseudo-cyborgs that have risen from the dumping grounds of technological waste as a form of “prosthetic identity”. They are coats of armour that resist and protect the artist from the consumption and rampant capitalism which he believes are at the root of the complicated environmental issues with which we are faced. By using the very material that threatens our ecological world to create an imagined, alternative reality, the artist proposes that new solutions may be possible.
“The costumes are so important to the Worldmaking aspect in my work, as the human body becomes a site of reimagining cultural and political identities.”
The Techno Dandy©™ documents himself adorned in his various jackets, hats and accessories; in considered, studio-lit photographs, or documented in situ, but always posed in performance and shot by the artist Ashley Walters.
Fractals 2 is a series of 7 works, each decreasing in size, woven from re-purposed computer cables, mice and USB connectors. Though discarded, the cables still hold the residual memory of the technological world they were once used to access. The reference to fractals, patterns infinitely replicating themselves as one zooms in, represents the Infinity and elusiveness of the digital
“ ….we are enmeshed in a world of the internet, and this virtual world continually redefines our identity.”
The Techno Dandy©™ understands the aesthetics and impact of used computer parts as vehicles of collective memories in our contemporary world.
“The computer fragments I use bear fingerprint deposits of the people who originally handled them and leave a story that I carry with me while adding my own. The memories are mixed and continued, creating new narratives and new histories.”
The works of The Techno Dandy©™ are on show in the Wine Lounge at Tokara, alongside our current exhibition Re-Purposing Our World. A captivating exhibition of art at the intersection of technology and eco-impact.
For more information, contact us at info@juliameintjes.co.za or 083 969 6926 (calls or Whatsapp)
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