tekhnē

Mark Mushiva is a Berlin-based Namibian street poet, rapper and technologist. One-third of the award-winning Hip-Hop poetry group Black Vulcanite and professionally trained as a computer scientist (PhD with the University of Trento, Italy), Mushiva uses these two experiences to access and project Afro-Accelerationist visions, the idea that suggests that a deep, rapid and radical adoption of computer technology by African people can counteract the adverse effects of racial capitalism.

At the core of Mushiva's exhibition at TRAFO is the concept of African Accelerationism: the radical belief that Africa’s future can be forged by accelerating its own histories of rebellion, resilience, and innovation. Rather than seeing technology as a force imposed from the outside, Mushiva repositions it as an extension of the independence movements that swept across the continent in the 1950s and 1960s. These struggles for freedom were themselves acts of futurism, driven by visions of a self-determined Africa unbound from colonial control.

Through his meticulously crafted objects and 3D-rendered environments, Mushiva creates speculative tools and devices that evoke both the materiality of the past and the possibilities of the future. His works gesture toward a world where African ingenuity drives technological advancement, subverting the linear narratives of Western progress. These imagined artifacts — part machine, part myth — weave together traditional African cosmologies with speculative design, pointing to a future that refuses to be bound by colonial histories.

The exhibition explores how technology, often viewed as a symbol of modernity and Western dominance, can instead serve as a medium of cultural reclamation. Mushiva’s objects blur the lines between the tangible and the virtual, suggesting that decolonization is as much a technological project as it is a political one. His speculative devices are imbued with a spirit of liberation — drawing on the deep ties between the material culture of African independence movements and the imagined futures they envisioned.

At the Institute of Decolonial Technology Mushiva presents instruments from his laboratory, including Mesho, a racism detector, a sound vest, and Mbako, a portable hand-held synthesizer. He will also present the first version of the video work Manyata Futurism, examining the architecture of African villages through fractal rendering. In presenting these works, The Institute of Decolonial Technology invites visitors to rethink their assumptions about technology and progress. It asks: What does a truly decolonial future look like? How can African histories of resistance and innovation reshape our technological landscapes?

By framing African Accelerationism as a movement that bridges past, present, and future, Mushiva offers a powerful reminder: the tools to imagine — and build — a liberated future have always been within reach. Through his speculative objects and digital interventions, he shows us that decolonial technology is not a far-off utopia, but a process already in motion.

https://trafo.art/en/mark-mushivainstytut-technologii-dekolonialnejafrykanski-akceleracjonizm/