Digital SUPERPOWER! is an initiative that aims to empower women and the LGBTQIA+ community (often most vulnerable in the inner city and Southern African communities) to express their relationship with the city and their environment. Over a period of 3 weeks, 15 creatives and artists from Johannesburg, Bulawayo, and London gathered online to explore issues surrounding gender safety in the urban centers of London, Bulawayo, and Johannesburg. They each used a custom gesture sensing data collection digital platform developed by artist & designer Ling Tan, to explore and collect data surrounding their own subjective perception and their communities’ experiences of gender safety in their own city. Based on their findings and discussion with each other, each participant went on to develop an artwork in their preferred digital medium. Below is a selection of data findings and artworks by participants across the 3 cities.
Digital SUPERPOWER! is part of an initiative – SUPERPOWER! developed by Ling Tan that explores our personal agency and responsibility as a citizen and as an individual in our complex interactions with our cities through our subjective perception using digital tools. Through working with communities in different cities, she developed a set of toolkits consisting of wearable technology, a mobile web platform and a data dashboard that enables a community to make sense of self-determined issues and collect data about their city using their subjective perception in the form of body gestures. Past projects range from air quality, perception of safety in public space, wheelchair accessibility, female public safety, cultural diversity, children’s well-being, to womxn representation.
Digital SUPERPOWER! is funded by British Council through the Digital Collaboration Fund led by Ling Tan(UK), Umbrellium(UK), Youth For Innovation (ZW) and Fak’ugesi African Digital Innovation Festival(SA).