dreamingthenew

About the creation of an artwork based on the brand of South Africa in a prime time TV show of 45 minutes.

Addictlab goes TV ... A South African TV-production house has understood the Addictlab system:  accelerating local talent and generating new concepts via collaborative processes.

The fact that it's in South Africa, with people from different backgrounds, cultures, colors and languages is a nice extra.

The fact that it's on SABC 1, with over 10 million viewers, well...

So here you have it... We're on television.

Addictlab had some airtime before, but not like this. Barbara King from Urban Brew, a  South African TV Production company , came listening to one of Jan Van Mol's lectures.  They started talking, and together they decided Addictlab could play a role in a program that would fit in the SABC series called 'Dreaming The New'.

It turns out to be quite a good example of Addictlab 's mission to accelerate creative talent and generate new ideas by collaborative processes.

Dreaming The New - SABC1, Tuesday September 16, 21.00.

Running Order

Section One - Introduction to Artists:
Short statements from each regarding how they dream the new.

Mthunzi Ndimande, a painter, curator, and art dealer explains his painting, talks about curating and we film his participation in Dreaming Ubuntu, an international public art installation celebrating Mandela's birthday.

Dannelle Janse van Rensberg, a visual artist focusing on sculpture and ceramics, shows us her work and tells us about the exhibition selection process from an artist's point of view as we film the opening of her current exhibition.

Nthabiseng Montshiwa, a sculptor, curator and educator of children living with disabilities takes us to the  source of her imagery: the harsh landscape of mining industry and its relationship with social realities, poverty and HIV/AIDS. 

From all three we investigate arts education, as well as methods and materials that inspire the process of creativity.  We discover how they use assimilated concepts, imagery and artefact to exemplify the skewed concepts of cultural and economic domination, the immorality of violence, and transmute those self same images to manifest a new dream of freedom from oppression, a new vision of humanity and hopes for a new civilization.

They tell us what the process of creativity is in their work,
What drives them, why are they drawn to create?
How smooth or rough is the process of creating in general?
And how do they deal with the highs of an inspired idea, and the lows when it doesn’t work?
And the magic when it does.

Section Two - At the Drawing Board//  Jan van Mol of AddictLab, an international creative platform,  invites our three artists to participate in a brainstorming session to create an object based on research on the brand of South Africa, which will be included in an exhibition and be published in an Ad!dict Inspiration Book.

  We glimpse the community in which artists work: as they interact with their contemporaries, in what is one of the basis of creativity: the brainstorming session.  It is in these sessions, when the outcome is unknown, that we see the thought process behind creativity, as artists from different disciplines combine their ideas to approach an assignment, eventually arriving at a consensus.


Section Three - The Creative Process // We follow the creative process of the three artists, as they design and interpret their artwork. View the  process of creativity in the various art forms they each use.. They talk to us whilst working in their studios we talk about inspiration; ideas, images, methods, and materials. The variety of potential paths to take to develop their part of this collaborative effort. What is going on, how do you communicate to the others? What has worked, not worked so far? What is it like so far, is it going your way? We see the process of creativity unfold.

Section Four - Finalizing the Dream // In this time frame, we also find out more their philosophies of art and creativity. Their reasons for dreaming the new, the inspirations and own dreams for artists, the viewing public and the next generation… We see Mtunzi at the Ubuntu Dreaming Public Art installation, and hear from Dannelle and Nthabesing as well on the subjects of what they teach their students, the art of curating, and of making public art. 

Section Five  - The Final Analysis  // The tension rises as, in the final analysis, they come back together to present their work, receive feedback from Jan van Mol and his team, and respond to the critique.

Our artists give their final words of inspiration about creativity and the value of dreaming the new, for themselves, for the art community and for the general public.


Credits
End of Programme

The artists statement

“(Re)cycle”

Taking the point of departure from the  Addictlab workshop,  the three of us have collaborated on a piece of work called “(Re)cycle”.

This piece is formulated from the collage of inspirational images that we arranged from branded magazines. The prerequisite of the workshop was to give our perception of “South Africa as a Brand”.

Our concept started with the process of Re-cycling which is a metaphor for our country being receivers of the Western influences, such as fashion trends, music, arts etc. Here we view the “Re-cycle bin” as a container of stored information, which needs to be re-evaluated, re-used, reconstructed and re-thought. Another issue is of the current reality with the mine workers field, where there is a vast exploitation of labor within these working places. We use signifiers such as a rusted container, copper wire, wood, and more especially gears to convey our message about the realities we face in South Africa.

From the storyboard we imitate the traffic circle concept, whereby a car can actually drive in and out of the circle in any direction. Here, as the gears used in the art piece, they are now inner parts of the circle. These gears represent the axis/stationary point in the wheel. They are responsible for the rotation of (what we refer to as) the recycling process. The weaved copper wire and wool represent the matrix of South African resources and also acts as a filter which is essential to our country’s control of the information influx.