Digitale Afrique

[Philippe Baudelot]

Incident (Art et Technologies), Netart Online Platform (Paris), Trias Culture (Cultural Company, Dakar), doual'art (Contemporary Art Center, Douala) and MCD (Musiques & Cultures Digitales - Paris) magazine initiate together a Paper and a Web-based Publication Project called « Digitale Afrique », which aims to realize an inventory and a Cartography of Digital Creation on the African Continent.

Digitale Afrique missions are to strengthen networks in the field of Digital Creation on the entire African Continent, to inventory resources and actors like artists, technicians, researchers, structures of education, production, distribution and fundraising, networks and tools that support African Digital Creation in all its forms, from Open Source code to Artworks.

Digitale Afrique answers to an increasing interregional and international demand of identification of Digital Arts Professionals in Africa. The initiatives about Digital Creation exist but they are isolated, not interconnected. The visibility in this field is insufficient, internationally and locally.

Main cultural manifestations already included Digital Art, such as Dak'Art Contemporary African Art Biennale in Dakar since 2002. Time has come to make information circulate, to interconnect people and to proceed to a first state of Digital Creation on the African Continent.

This inventory will be realized by Incident (Art et Technologies) in coordination with Trias Culture and doual'art and with the help of relays based in several cities identified as the most actives in this field in different regions of Africa(such as the Digital Arts Division of the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg (South Africa). This research will be coordinated and diffused online on digitalafrique.net Website, enabling those involved in the Digital Culture to be connected on a single, dynamic and bilingual platform. The result will be published as a special issue of MCD (Musiques & Cultures Digitales) magazine.

Web : http://digitalafrique.net/