Afro@Digital [Film]
SummaryText
Afro@Digital is an African Documentary on the Digital Revolution in Africa. The documentary looks at the promise these new technologies hold for Africa. "Statistics show that Africa is well behind the rest of the world in terms of information technologies. But the numbers fail to show the original ways Africans are using the little that is available."
Afro@Digital looks at the impact of various digital technologies across a broad swath of present-day African life. The first cell phones were introduced in the Congo in 1986; today they have flooded the continent circumventing the often unreliable and expensive land-based telephone networks. Can they allow Africa to leapfrog into the digital age avoiding the long, incremental path of telephonic development of the West? Combining traditional and modern, a marabout in Burkina Faso and a Yoruba babalao say that cell phones allow them to keep in close touch with their devotees around the world.
Oumou Sy, a Senegalese fashion designer, travels around rural areas with a "cyberbus," a video projection system to advertise her collection. She has created jobs for 200 workers and has incorporated computer components into a traditional African aesthetic. At the same time a musician uses digital technologies to remix Aka pygmy music to make the instrumental track more prominent. Computers are particularly good at generating loops of reiterated rhythmic patterns characteristic of both traditional and contemporary African music.
Mactar Syllar, director of radio and television in Senegal, points out that transportation between African countries is difficult; teleconferences and the internet can make Pan-African communications much simpler for businesses, governments and individuals . We witness a teleconference between students in Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Congo and Senegal. The internet may also have a use in tying together students in "distance learning" courses. But, like Americans, Africans express mixed emotions about privacy and pornography on the internet.
Click here for more information.
Afro@Digital looks at the impact of various digital technologies across a broad swath of present-day African life. The first cell phones were introduced in the Congo in 1986; today they have flooded the continent circumventing the often unreliable and expensive land-based telephone networks. Can they allow Africa to leapfrog into the digital age avoiding the long, incremental path of telephonic development of the West? Combining traditional and modern, a marabout in Burkina Faso and a Yoruba babalao say that cell phones allow them to keep in close touch with their devotees around the world.
Oumou Sy, a Senegalese fashion designer, travels around rural areas with a "cyberbus," a video projection system to advertise her collection. She has created jobs for 200 workers and has incorporated computer components into a traditional African aesthetic. At the same time a musician uses digital technologies to remix Aka pygmy music to make the instrumental track more prominent. Computers are particularly good at generating loops of reiterated rhythmic patterns characteristic of both traditional and contemporary African music.
Mactar Syllar, director of radio and television in Senegal, points out that transportation between African countries is difficult; teleconferences and the internet can make Pan-African communications much simpler for businesses, governments and individuals . We witness a teleconference between students in Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Congo and Senegal. The internet may also have a use in tying together students in "distance learning" courses. But, like Americans, Africans express mixed emotions about privacy and pornography on the internet.
Click here for more information.
Publication Date
Number of Pages
52 minutes
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