HALF ART
CHRIS THURMAN: Pixellated slaves to our many mediated realities
Zwelethu Machepa employs what he calls a ‘pixellated format’ in his work to represent ‘our currently reality that is mediated through technology’
It was a decidedly old-skool coup. The Zimbabwe Defence Forces rolled into Harare, the generals took over and there was the inevitable state television broadcast: an unprepossessing figure in military fatigues reading a message assuring the nation that there has not been a coup. The men in uniform also ensured that only old freedom songs were played on the radio. But such control of the traditional airwaves was rather comically undermined by the presence of, um, new media. Zimbabweans continued tweeting and posting on Facebook for all the world to see. There was a wicked irony to all this: in October, in a cabinet reshuffle that was part of President Robert Mugabe’s final purge, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa was given the new portfolio of cyber security, threat detection and mitigation. Basically, his job was the surveillance of social media. Ever-sanguine Zimbabweans dubbed him "The Minister of WhatsApp". Chinamasa is an ally of Emmerson Mnangagwa, the man who would be king. A...
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