Kherofo, a server-based digital interface
Sejapelo
Noga ya thaba
Moruka wa khosi
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Nahas/Dumuzi
Sedumedi
Kherofo
This web interface plays with three motifs that I have been obsessed with for some time, namely:
- significant star constellations and celestial bodies of southern African indigenous knowledge systems;
- mythical serpents that I find to be a parallel of these heavenly bodies;
- and finally, Ditaola, a divining method that mobilises intuition and holding in play multiple variables as one diagnoses a problem.
In essence, the project uses a series of technologies for figuring out something complex. What the three categories have in common is their ability to divine some form of future as the name of the dice suggest, or as commonly referred to lately in the drive for linking IKS and STEM research, around the use of stars to predict the weather and other meteorological phenomena like drought. It is also noted by publications such as Venus Rising (2014), to divine the birth and death of important mediums including mahosi (rulers) and their fortunes. The mythical serpents, on the other hand, are also a mitigating factor in the lives or ascension of such a ruler. Often you would hear stories of councillors asking an old serpent that occupied important hills near the seats of such rulers, who should lead them after a ruler, family head or such had passed. There is no agreement about what these serpents look like, sometimes appearing as people, meruka (shiny beads) with some often described as spectacular or so vast that one cannot fathom them - hence my choice to feature them as as constellations.
In a roundabout way, the story of Malekhalo, the ascension hut interacting with the idea of Kherofo within the ‘Lebitla la Ngaka’ installation, is a process of asking an unseen figure “who the next ruler is”. It is also important to note that among these serpents is the figure of the planet Venus, often associated with the figure of Modjadji and Nehanda, who in some cases are imagined as arbitrators of power among mahosi, often consulted in dark caves where only the voice is heard with instructions or pronouncements.
What do these have to do with dreams? Aside from the obvious understanding that all three are significant dream motifs, or diagnostics within a dreamscape, they are here because I appreciate dreams as instructions from an unseen space - ever present.
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