Mkhari, Nkhensani
Nkhensani Mkhari’s practice spans a range of symbolic and aesthetic frontiers, presently spotlighting the evolutionary potential of cultural practices and spirituality in an increasingly connected and cybernetic world. Their artistic process entails interfacing processed photographic images into augmented and virtual reality environments. Through an iterative procedure that involves cross-media synthesis, Mkhari’s oeuvre highlights the indispensable quality of virtual representation as complementary to actual, physical matter.
In Zibuyile Zinkisi (2020), a web-based 3D augmented graphic, viewers activate a chain of synthetic reactions that insert digitally fabricated objects in the natural environment. These interfaced or layered images of Nkisi - charged sculptures that embody shared spiritual contacts intensify non-human consciousness that occupies the space between tangible materials, palpable but invisible in the physical world. Nkisi apparition, weightless like the human soul, looms as a vanishing bubble of dark matter. This imagery is accessible through a phone camera or even with the assistance of an augmented reality headset. For example, in the Instagram filter version, pressing the record button layers adjustable imagery on a fixed position in the immersive physical surroundings. The viewer’s line of vision encounters these “invisible,” virtual objects that signify the omnipotence of spiritual, non-human consciousness.
In the end, what constitutes the ritualistic transfer of the spiritual vitality from natural objects to the immaterial, virtual world? Zibuyile Zinkisi, meaning the return of the Nkisi, is a restoration and reimagination of textures of sacred objects in both the porous cyberspace and a world actively reclaiming spiritual and traditional customs suppressed by explicit hegemony. These objects, endowed with spiritual latency, are in multimodal manifestations and accessible as shared files, as graphic downloads, or even printed as 3D objects. Hence, not only does the futuristic representation of Nkisi destabilize the rootedness of digital objects as expressions constructed on modern engineering tools for practical purposes, but it also possesses a metaphorical intention as a rhizomatic vibration that seeks alternative, hybrid realities.
Text: Enos Nyamor; englische Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler
Nkhensani Mkhari’s practice spans a range of symbolic and aesthetic frontiers, presently spotlighting the evolutionary potential of cultural practices and spirituality in an increasingly connected and cybernetic world. Their artistic process entails interfacing processed photographic images into augmented and virtual reality environments. Through an iterative procedure that involves cross-media synthesis, Mkhari’s oeuvre highlights the indispensable quality of virtual representation as complementary to actual, physical matter.
In Zibuyile Zinkisi (2020), a web-based 3D augmented graphic, viewers activate a chain of synthetic reactions that insert digitally fabricated objects in the natural environment. These interfaced or layered images of Nkisi - charged sculptures that embody shared spiritual contacts intensify non-human consciousness that occupies the space between tangible materials, palpable but invisible in the physical world. Nkisi apparition, weightless like the human soul, looms as a vanishing bubble of dark matter. This imagery is accessible through a phone camera or even with the assistance of an augmented reality headset. For example, in the Instagram filter version, pressing the record button layers adjustable imagery on a fixed position in the immersive physical surroundings. The viewer’s line of vision encounters these “invisible,” virtual objects that signify the omnipotence of spiritual, non-human consciousness.
In the end, what constitutes the ritualistic transfer of the spiritual vitality from natural objects to the immaterial, virtual world? Zibuyile Zinkisi, meaning the return of the Nkisi, is a restoration and reimagination of textures of sacred objects in both the porous cyberspace and a world actively reclaiming spiritual and traditional customs suppressed by explicit hegemony. These objects, endowed with spiritual latency, are in multimodal manifestations and accessible as shared files, as graphic downloads, or even printed as 3D objects. Hence, not only does the futuristic representation of Nkisi destabilize the rootedness of digital objects as expressions constructed on modern engineering tools for practical purposes, but it also possesses a metaphorical intention as a rhizomatic vibration that seeks alternative, hybrid realities.
Text: Enos Nyamor; englische Übersetzung: Johanna Schindler