i Supervisors: Professor Tanja Sakota Kokot and Dr Yolo Koba at the University of Witwatersrand, Faculty of Film & TV Student Name: Shmerah Passchier | Student Number: 59683 | Date: 14-03-2023 Supervisors: Professor Tanja Sakota Kokot and Dr Yolo Koba at the University of Witwatersrand, Faculty of Film & TV Student Name: Shmerah Passchier | Student Number: 59683 | Date: 05-03-2023 Figure 1: Virtual Reality (VR) film poster for The Eye of Rre Mutwa – An Afrocyborg Homage to Credo Vasamazulu Mutwa 1921–2020. Written, directed, shot and produced by Shmerah Passchier, in collaboration with The Afrocyborg Collective. This is an Augmented Reality (AR) film poster. If you download the UniteAR application (app) from Google Play Store on a smartphone, then launch the app and scan the image of the poster above, a VR trailer of the film will begin to play. Figure 2: Virtual Reality (VR) film poster for The Eye of Rre Mutwa – An Afrocyborg Homage to Credo Vasamazulu Mutwa 1921–2020. CONSTRUCTING THE AFROCYBORG IN VR 360 CINEMA: A CRITICAL INVESTIGATION INTO HOW TWO AFRICAN WOMEN FILMMAKERS COLLABORATE TO CONSTRUCT PROSOCIAL AFRICAN SCIENCE FICTION IN VIRTUAL REALITY FILMMAKING ii Plagiarism declaration and ethics clearance I know plagiarism is ethically and legally wrong, and presenting what another author has written in your own words and thoughts is a crime. As such, I have followed the Harvard referencing method in presenting the theories, ideas, and terms of the various authors referenced and cited in the writing of this PhD. I recognise that the University of the Witwatersrand may undertake disciplinary action against me should I fail to adequately acknowledge the source of the ideas and words cited in my writing. I, therefore, assert that all written work submitted here for assessment is my own unassisted and independently written work. This research is collaborative, so I have cited my fellow animateur, Moratiwa Molema, and her various contributions with her permission. In these instances, creative contributions to making two Virtual Reality films are fully acknowledged, per the Harvard citation method. This collaborative research is submitted towards the PhD by creative project and dissertation, in the Faculty of Film and Television, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. This research and writing have yet to be submitted for any other degree or examination at another university or institution. Shmerah Passchier 1st submission: 14 March 2023 Final Submission 02-10-2023 Ethics clearance protocol number: H19/02/26 iii How to view the two VR films that are the outcomes attached to this creative work PhD submission The Afrocyborg VR Film Masters are available to download here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1olhOeLtuaQEnIkoD8E-ODjoGC34i5PLb The titles of the two VR films are: 1. The Cosmic Egg (2023.mp4) 2. The Eye of Rre Mutwa (2023.mp4) Please do not watch the equirectangular video directly from this Google Drive as this is not the correct format for viewing 360-degree material. These two video files must be downloaded to your desktop and installed onto a professional quality VR Headset such as an Oculus Go. Please follow the instructions below to install the VR films onto your VR Headset: 1. Connect your Oculus Go/VR Headset to your computer using a USB cable. 2. Switch your Oculus Go/VR Headset on and give your computer permission to access your VR Headset’s built-in storage 3. Drag and drop or copy and paste the two 360º videos into the Movies folder on the VR Headset or Oculus Go. 4. If you are working on an Apple Mac, you will need to download Android File Transfer – available here: https://www.android.com/filetransfer/ to do this). 5. Put on your Oculus Go, and navigate using the hand controllers to click Gallery, then click on Internal Storage 6. Note the batteries in the hand controllers should have a charge to operate the VR device. 7. You should now see the videos you uploaded, and you can click either one to start playing it. N.B. Ensure you have turned OFF developer mode in your Oculus Go app, or else your computer might not recognise the device, and you may not be able to transfer any files. Viewing To hear the ambisonic, spatial audio soundtrack in both films, please wear earphones that are plugged into your VR Headset via the mini-jack plug-in port. N.B. Please ensure that you are sitting in a rotating chair and be sure to move your head and body around inside the 360-degree immersive video experience. iv Acknowledgements Thank you to AFDA: The School for The Creative Economy, where I have been a faculty member for the past 13 years, for partially funding this research (afda.co.za). I wish to acknowledge the incredible comradery and companionship of my co-creator, Moratiwa Molema, who undertook this PhD journey with me in forming the Afrocyborg VR Collective. I could not have done this without you. I have learnt so much from you, and you continue to teach me so much. “We are all the leaves on one tree. We are all the waves in one sea. We are all the stars in one sky” (Thich Nhat Hanh). I thank Dr Leloba Molema for her wisdom, mentorship and guidance, specifically in reviewing and editing both VR scripts and doing the impeccable Setswana translation and voice-over for The Cosmic Egg. The Afrocyborg VR Collective were the grateful recipient of a grant from Digital Lab Africa, which enabled the procurement of VR equipment to produce the two films. We also wish to thank the Virtual National Arts Festival of 2020, which partially funded the production of the two VR films. Early drafts of this research were presented at the CILECT (Centre International de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinéma et de Télévision) Conference in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2017. The keynote opening address was titled Afrofuturism in Virtual Reality 360 Cinema. In 2018, early drafts of this research were presented at CARA (CILECT Africa Regional Association), held in Johannesburg, curated by Professor Jyoti Mistry. The title of this presentation was: Towards Afrofuturist Women Filmmakers in Virtual Reality 360 Cinema Collaborating on the Integrated Circuit. Thank you to my supervisors, Professor Tanja Sakota Kokot and Dr Yolo Koba, for guiding me through this discovery process. Thank you to Professor Brigitte Gauthier at Université D’Evry, Paris, France, for publishing an earlier draft of this research as a chapter in her book, Afrique du Sud, Cinéma et Enjeux Contemporains. The chapter was translated as La mise en place de l’afrocyborg au cinéma en réalité virtuelle à 360°. v Acronyms 1IR The First Industrial Revolution 2IR The Second Industrial Revolution 3IR The Third Industrial Revolution 4IR The Fourth Industrial Revolution AI Artificial Intelligence AR Augmented Reality – digital artefacts superimposed onto “reality” via AR apps or HoloLens CGI Computer Generated Imagery CGI VR Computer Generated VR – typically created in Unity game engine design software CVR Cinematic VR 360 spherical video DLA Digital Lab Africa DOF Degrees of Freedom HMD Head-Mounted Display or VR Headset for watching VR media PC Personal Computer SAFT South African Film & Television Industry SF Science Fiction STEAM Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics STEM Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics SWIFT Sisters Working in Film & Television – a South African feminist NGO VR Virtual Reality XR Extended Reality – a blend of VR & AR immersive media content Glossary of terms African Science Fiction – Nnedi Okorafor distinguishes African SF, which is “similar to Afrofuturism, but is more directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology, and perspective, where the centre is non-Western” (Okorafor 2019: 83). Afrofuturism – is a global, African, science-fiction, multi-disciplinary genre (Anderson & Jones 2016). Animateur – sociocultural actor, or “active agent of her development and of the qualitative development of the community to which s/he belongs” (Foth 2005: 645). “Keepers of the vision who mediate, facilitate and seek self-awareness, self-efficacy, reflexivity, and motivation to build community efficacy for community members” (Foth 2005: 645). Behaviour Modification – refers to the work of the cognitive behavioural scientist B.F. Skinner, who designed a laboratory experiment to administer electric shocks to rats and dogs in an electrified cage to modify their behaviour (Lanier 2017: 58, 95). Body transfer is a neuroscience term describing what happens when a VR user enters the “body” of a CGI avatar. When the user identifies with their avatar body, they “feel” what happens to their avatar (Bailenson 2018: 58). vi CineVR – an abbreviation of Cinematic VR. Embodied Cognition – is a somatic phenomenon distinct to VR learning experiences, according to Bailenson, who has conducted research affirming VR as a practical learning aid since people learn by “doing”. VR simulates “learning by doing” relatively well: “… proponents of embodied cognition posit that by simulating an action in the brain, one can improve learning” (Bailenson 2018: 29). Embodiment – in VR describes how a viewer/user can become someone else. They can step into the body of innumerable computer-generated avatars. Bailenson has conducted several experiments in his VR lab that describe the prophylactic effects of “an embodiment” and how the use of this phenomenon in the medium can treat and address critical issues such as ageism, sexism, racism, phobias, and environmentalism (Bailenson 2018: 60). Empathy – in VR, initially referred to as “The Ultimate Empathy Machine”, a popular Ted Talk by VR filmmaker Chris Milk who underlined the immersive properties of VR, which enable empathy and connection in profound ways through the ability of the medium to alter perception, more so than traditional media formats (Bailenson 2018: 53). The discourse of VR as “empathy machine” has since been widely rejected by Jones in, Immersive Journalism as Storytelling: Ethics, Production, and Design (2020). Exponential Computing – developed by Ray Kurzweil, is based on “The Law of Accelerating Returns”, his exponential interpretation of Moore’s Law (Kurzweil 2005: 42). Exponential Technology – technology emerging from 4IR, namely, AI, VR, AR, XR, robotics, drones, nanobots, 3D (three-dimensional) printing, wearable computing & digital implants/biology (Schwab 2018: 28). High Techné – emerged from techno-cyber-culture in the 1990s, coinciding with the global adoption of the internet as a critical new technology and media-communication tool. “High techné” is a postmodern mutation of avant-garde “techné” (Rutsky 1999: 101). Immersion – is achieved in VR because the movement of the head corresponds to the movement of the picture, enabled by gyroscope technology. The high frame rate in VR of 60- 90 frames per second to refresh the image also leads to a greater feeling of “immersion” in the medium (Tricart 2018: 20). Immersive Computing – a VR HMD is an immersive computer that can do almost anything a desktop or laptop computer can. Immersive Media – any immersive experience created in VR, AR or XR. Immersive Storytelling – places the viewer at the centre of the narrative (Jones 2020: 194). Immersive Technology – VR, AR & XR (Jones 2020: 2). Poiesis or Poietic – Hosale, Murrani & de Campo (2018 ch 1 para 20) define “poietic” as a term belonging to the domain of techné, which represents the aesthetics methods of worldmaking. vii Presence – in VR refers to a feeling of “being there”, which is unique to 360° filmmaking (Tricart 2018: 38). Prosocial VR – is used in various “civic applications, including education, healthcare, journalism, enhancing mutual understanding, reducing gender and racial biases, and promoting altruistic behaviours” (Aitamurto, Stevenson Won & Zhou 2021: 2139). Pro-social VR is the conscious application of the technology used to change participant behaviour towards positive action and contribution to society. Quantum Computing – is defined by IBM as harnessing “the phenomena of quantum mechanics to deliver a huge leap forward in computation to solve certain problems. IBM design quantum computers to solve complex problems that today’s most powerful supercomputers cannot solve and never will” (ibm.com). Techné – Heidegger approaches techné as a critical questioning of technology grounded in the praxis of concept formation. Heidegger uses the term “ge-stell” to question what lies beneath technology. “Ge-stell” equates to “enframing”, a structuring of the gaze to probe the truth (Hosale, Murrani & de Campo 2018: ch1: para 7). Technofeminsm – a sub-genre of post-feminism defined as “the complex ways in which women’s everyday lives and technological change interrelate in the age of digitalization” (Wajcman 2004: 14). VR Agency – when the viewer wears a VR head-mounted display (HMD), they can choose where to aim their gaze inside the 360-degree spherical image. This viewing experience differs vastly from traditional media formats, such as cinema and television, because VR does not dictate where viewers should fix their gaze. This viewer “agency” in VR fundamentally alters the grammar of cinema by comparison to single-lens cameras and traditional filmmaking syntax. VR awe – is simulated in VR to treat depression in patients or to expedite convalescence in hospitalised patients. This results from VR’s unique ability to induce awe through “presence”, which is a feeling of being transported to a different place. Awe is simulated in VR by creating virtual encounters with natural phenomena such as starry night skies, forest scenes, or ocean vistas. Inducing awe in VR has been shown to have transformative capabilities to treat psychological and physical ailments (Chirico, Ferrise, Cordella, & Gaggioli 2018: 1). VR synaesthesia – Miriam Ross argues in Virtual Reality’s New Synesthetic Possibilities (2018) that VR possesses qualities of synesthesia. This neurological condition activates intertwined sensory experiences such as seeing music or hearing colour. VR-induced synesthesia collapses the senses into overlapping domains when the human body experiences “body transfer” via multisensory optical illusions, which teleport the brain into constructed parallel media worlds. Worldbuilding – in VR filmmaking refers to the ability of the medium to deliver immersion, presence and embodiment (Tricart 2017: 89). VR places the viewer at the centre of ever- expanding concentric circles of imagery, effectively replacing the old rectangular/square cinema and TV formats that have been in place since 1896 (Hall & Takashi 2017: 1). viii Abstract The Afrocyborg semiotic construct is a neologism inspired by cyborg scholarship, beginning with Donna Haraway’s 1985, A Cyborg Manifesto, which materialised at the zenith of the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR), and the appearance of the domestic personal computer (PC) in the late twentieth century. This contribution to cyborg discourse re-focuses the Western science/fiction gaze of “cyborgology” by foregrounding African cyborg realities at the centre of the new zeitgeist of 4IR-driven XR technologies, specifically the VR HMD as an immersive computing device, which is a cyborg prosthetic extension of human ocular abilities (Gray 1995: 1). Moratiwa Molema and I formed the Afrocyborg VR Collective as an Afro-technofeminist coalition, and solidarity support group for collective womanist filmmaking. This methodology foregrounds the technological empowerment of women in relation to VR as a medium while focusing on prosocial subject matter in the domains of eco-justice and racial-gender-justice (Ogunyemi 2006: 21). For this reason, the Afrocyborg VR Collective make Prosocial VR films in the genre of African Science Fiction, which is a counter-hegemonic narrative lens through which to generate “cyborg consciousness” about “oppositional consciousness” (Sandoval 2020: 408; hooks 1992: 264). Cyborg oppositional consciousness is expressed as “Fourth VR” (Wallis & Ross 2020: 1). An Afro-technofeminist, technopolitical framework advances filmmaking discourse and praxis by autodidactic online learning of how to operate VR equipment, thereby overcoming our tech-inferiority complex with a thought experiment we call the “Dora Milaje mind trick” (Coogler 2018). As we learn, we also teach VR skills to our students and communities of youth to share knowledge of 4IR tools, specifically with women, to empower them with 4IR STEAM skills as a technopolitical, educational and future-proofing empowerment strategy. The Afrocyborg Collective has made two VR films in the genre of Prosocial VR as part of the creative praxis of Quantum Botho/Ubuntu in the making of The Cosmic Egg, which is a call to elevated environmental consciousness, and The Eye of Rre Mutwa, which confronts “white fragility” about the technological developments of the 4IR (DiAngelo 2018). By experimenting with new gaze regimes offered by the exponential medium of VR, with its multiple lenses that create 360-degree spherical story worlds, we demonstrate how the “medium is the muthi” when used in the mode of Prosocial VR. Therefore, the construction of an expanded prosocial gaze in VR, in the genre of African futurism, contributes to the decolonial undoing of ix oppressive power structures by generating representations of Africa that seek to apprehend the stereotypes of Hegelian racial prejudice and “poverty porn” that persist in global media representations (Kahiu 2017) x Table of Contents Plagiarism declaration and ethics clearance ..................................................................................... ii How to view the two VR films that are the outcomes attached to this creative work PhD submission ....................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... iv Acronyms .......................................................................................................................................... v Glossary of terms .............................................................................................................................. v Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... viii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. x List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. xi The technogenesis of the Afrocyborg – introduction and chapter outline ............................................ 1 Chapter outline .................................................................................................................................. 6 The Cosmic Egg synopsis .............................................................................................................. 11 The Eye of Rre Mutwa synopsis ..................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 1: How the Afrocyborg VR Collective applies technofeminist cyborg theory when making VR films in the African SF context .................................................................................................. 14 The Dora Milaje mind trick – a Technofeminist thought experiment ............................................... 19 CHAPTER 2: How the Afrocyborg VR X applies 21st-century and 4IR STEAM skills specific to VR film production as a political, educational and future proofing empowerment strategy .................. 36 CHAPTER 3: Why the Afrocyborg Collective makes Prosocial VR ................................................... 48 VR is non-binary cyborg technology ............................................................................................... 49 Prosocial VR as a way to govern the ethics of 4IR ......................................................................... 54 VR a cyborg technology .................................................................................................................. 62 Learning to speak the language of VR ............................................................................................ 64 The cyborg language of Cinematic VR (CVR) ................................................................................ 70 VR cinematic gaze = traditional cinematic gaze2 ............................................................................ 72 Experimenting with awe and synesthesia in The Eye of Rre Mutwa .............................................. 73 CHAPTER 4: Prosocial VR in the creative praxis of Quantum Botho/Ubuntu in the making of The Cosmic Egg and The Eye of Rre Mutwa ......................................................................................... 86 The African origins of the Afrocyborg .............................................................................................. 86 The pre-historic origins of Afrocyborg representations in The Cosmic Egg .................................... 86 The narrative structure of The Cosmic Egg .................................................................................... 92 The Egg Blessers as shamanic time-travelling Afrocyborgs ........................................................... 95 The medium is the muthi – painting with healing magic ................................................................. 97 Afrocyborgs in The Eye of Rre Mutwa .......................................................................................... 103 The anthropomorphic eye as a central Afrocentric archetype ...................................................... 107 Performing “White Fragility” in The Eye of Rre Mutwa .................................................................. 114 Act 1 – The First Industrial Revolution (1IR) ................................................................................. 117 xi Act 2 – From electricity to enlightenment (2IR) ............................................................................. 120 Act 3 – The internet and interconnectivity (3IR) ............................................................................ 123 Act 4 – From quantum computing to Quantum Ubuntu (4IR) ....................................................... 126 The semiotics of the eye as an allegory for the Prosocial gaze in the mode of Fourth VR .......... 128 Learning the medium of VR through the lens of Mutwa’s muthi ................................................... 131 CHAPTER 5: Findings and conclusions: the medium is the muthi ................................................. 134 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 146 FILMOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................ 162 IMAGES ........................................................................................................................................ 163 List of Figures Figure 1: XR film poster for The Eye of Rre Mutwa – An Afrocyborg Homage to Credo Vasamazulu Mutwa 1921–2020. ............................................................................................................................ i Figure 2: Circles of Consilience linking cyborg theory to social justice theory, 4IR theory, Prosocial VR theory and Ubuntu philosophy .................................................................................................... 6 Figure 3: VR film poster for The Cosmic Egg ................................................................................... 10 Figure 4: VR film poster for The Eye of Rre Mutwa. ......................................................................... 11 Figure 5: The Dora Milaje Warrior Women of Wakanda. .................................................................. 22 Figures 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10: Screen grabs from Wakanda Forever co-authored by Nnedi Okorafor. ..... 23 Figure 11: Afrocyborg VR Collective self-portrait stills in VR ............................................................ 29 Figure 12: Merging with the Machine: Molema and I on Digital Lab Africa artist residency, 2019. .. 31 Figure 13: Boulamwini in Coded Bias (2022). ................................................................................... 35 Figure 14: Boulamwini wearing a white mask so that AI algorithms can “see” her face. .................. 35 Figure 15: Jeremy Pouilloux’s Accused #2 ......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 16: INA control rooms .............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 17: INA masterclasses as part of DLA VR training .................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 18: The “Archeophone" ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 19: Obsolete dictabelt audio recording technology .................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 20: The Rivonia Trial dictabelts in the South African National Archives. Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 21: Meta is partnering with Africa No Filter, Electric South and Imisi3D to showcase XR talent in Africa ................................................................................................................................. 47 Figure 22: “iHuman” cyborg-VR gamer wearing a BCI VR HMD ...................................................... 47 Figure 23: Woman visitor to the TMRW Gallery in Johannesburg .................................................... 47 Figure 24: Meta’s new BCI-VR reading Electronic Brain Waves decoded from the “user” ............... 47 Figure 25: Eugene Ohu – lecturer at Lagos Business School .......................................................... 47 Figure 26: Research participant testing Neurable BCI-VR ............................................................... 47 Figure 27: Eugene Ohu wearing an HTC Vive VR Headset ............................................................. 47 Figure 28: Meta’s new BCI-VR can control a digital avatar via telekinesis ....................................... 47 Figure 29: Africa No Filter and Meta announce a new fund to improve VR in African storytelling ... 57 Figure 30: Patricia Boyer laughs ironically ........................................................................................ 58 Figure 31: Audience agency in 3 DOF and 6 DOF ........................................................................... 65 Figure 32: VR’s map-like equirectangular format .............................................................................. 66 Figure 33: The expansive VR canvas ............................................................................................... 66 xii Figure 34: XR image of The Cosmic Egg ......................................................................................... 70 Figure 35: Extracts from a lecture on VR .......................................................................................... 71 Figure 36: The human sensory perception system captivated by VR technology ............................ 73 Figure 37: A still image extracted from The Eye of Rre Mutwa ......................................................... 75 Figure 38: The Insta360One_X VR camera inside a mirror prism .................................................... 76 Figure 39: Fractal VR cinematography in The Eye of Rre Mutwa ..................................................... 76 Figure 40: Fractured identities: non-binary representation in fractal VR cinematography ................ 78 Figure 41: Opening night of the RapidLion Film Festival in 2021 ....... Error! Bookmark not defined. Figures 42 & 43: The pan-African VR showcase posters for RapidLion Film Festival 2021. ........... 84 Figure 44: San rock art informs the eco-myth in The Cosmic Egg ................................................... 85 Figure 45: The opening image of The Cosmic Egg ............................ Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 46: Dr Leloba Molema ........................................................................................................... 94 Figure 47: The interconnectedness of the arts in the creative conception of Botho ......................... 97 Figure 48: The Egg Blessers ............................................................................................................ 99 Figure 49: AR film poster for The Eye of Rre Mutwa ...................................................................... 103 Figure 50: The Wedjat Eye represents both The Eye of Ra and The Eye of Horus ....................... 106 Figure 51: The Eye of Ra and The Eye of Horus ............................................................................ 107 Figure 52: Book of the Dead of Hunefer (145 BCE) ....................................................................... 112 Figure 53: Fractions in the Eye of Horus ........................................................................................ 113 Figure 54: The Eye of Horus in the human brain and the human sensorium ................................. 113 Figure 55: The Eye of Ra ................................................................................................................ 113 Figure 56: The Eye of Rre Mutwa ................................................................................................... 113 Figure 57: Boyer performs “white fragility” ...................................................................................... 115 Figure 58: Transforming “white fragility” into affinity and solidarity ................................................. 115 Figure 59: Ibokwe wearing a crown of lightbulbs ............................................................................ 120 Figure 60: Boyer and Khoza become cyborgs ............................................................................... 122 Figure 61: The Eye of Rre Mutwa creates the optics of infinity. ..................................................... 124 Figure 62: Fractal VR cinematography as a representation of Quantum Ubuntu ........................... 127 Figure 63: The Eye of Rre Mutwa represents a “planetary turn” towards Africa ............................. 129 Figure 64 & 65: Phumlani Pikoli ..................................................................................................... 138 Figure 66: Afrocyborg portrait created in AI software programme, Midjourney…………………..…144 Figure 67: New VR Film Poster for The Cosmic Egg designed for Creation Africa Festival in Paris France, 2023………………………………………………………………………………………………..145 Figure 68: New VR Film Poster for The Eye of Rre Mutwa designed for Creation Africa Festival in Paris France, 2023…………………………………………………………………….…………………...146 1 The technogenesis of the Afrocyborg – introduction and chapter outline This creative PhD describes how the African cyborg or Afrocyborg semiotics were constructed in Virtual Reality (VR) 360, spherical video, cinematic form by applying a twenty- first century African Science Fiction and technofeminist1 conceptual framework. The central semiotic object under analysis and revision is the postmodern, neo-Marxist cyborg of Haraways’ technofeminism. Haraway’s cyborg is a prosocial polyvalent creature prone to multiplicity. As such, her cyborg, and our Afrocyborg, share multiple overlapping nodes of consilience, as does the conceptual framework, with social justice theory and Prosocial VR, in light of VR as a tool of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). An essential thread in the narrative of 4IR theory is the move towards exponential technologies becoming embedded in the human body as “wet devices” (Schwab & Davis 2018: 72; Musk 2020). VR is an example of wearable tech, a predecessor to “wet devices”. Within this decade, Kurzweil predicts that nanobots will be injected into the bloodstream to enable a seamless VR interface (Kurzweil 2005: 98). Human modification or transhumanism is cyborg subject matter, the nexus of human-machine adaptation and evolution. As such, there is consilience between cyborg theory and 4IR theory, which begs the question of ethics and social justice to guide the age of exponential and quantum computing. These ethical debates must be urgently brought to the fore if Africa is to resist the algorithmic repetition of data colonialism amid the disruption of 4IR (Benyera 2021: 149; Marwala 2020: 211). We offer the neologism of Quantum Ubuntu to guide ethical and prosocial discussion of our technofeminist VR collaboration praxis. Prosocial use of 4IR technologies is critical, as data is now worth more than oil; and is being deployed as a weapons-grade political tool, which could destroy democracy in the wrong hands (Benyera 2021: 143; Marwala 2020: 211, 224). The Afrocyborg seeks to participate in the revolutionising capacity of 4IR XR media technologies, which could also be used to uplift humanity by working towards solving our most significant planetary challenges and the collective challenges we face on the African continent (Marwala 2020: 2). As such, the research methodology was conducted by producing two VR short films in the genre of Prosocial VR, which foregrounds social justice societal concerns toward promoting 1 Technofeminism builds on cyborg feminism, specifically the work of Donna Haraway, by delivering a critique of mainstream science and technology theory and practice (Wajcman 2004: 103). Technofeminism examines the mutually constituting components of gender and technology and how machines manifest gender relations (Wajcman 2004: 207). 2 prosocial behaviour change in addressing blind spots in the social fabric of our world (Aitamurto, Stevenson Won & Zhou 2021: 2139). Social justice informs this mode of African VR filmmaking, which is evident in the conceptual framework and formation of the Afrocyborg VR Collective and the thematic expression of the two films, which address “eco-justice” and the role of “white fragility” in decolonising 4IR (Molema 2020; DiAngelo 2018). Our collective intersects with concurrent pan-African communities of professional practice, namely WeAreVR Africa and Digital Lab Africa. This collaborative, communal, intra-connected thinking is vital for Molema and me as the primary members of the Afrocyborg Collective. Moratiwa Molema, my ally, colleague, media lecturer and professional animateur, based in Gaborone, Botswana, and I have embraced an African mode of collaborative filmmaking practice, informed by a synthesised philosophy that “Mwe”, together named Quantum Botho, in Botswana, and Ubuntu in South Africa2 (Siegel 2022: xxi). “Mwe” implies the integrated and intra-connected mode of our filmic praxis that shares consilience with Ubuntu (Siegel 2022: 14; 34). This bricolage theory conceptually informs our creative work, as evidenced in our two Prosocial VR films. It is the substance that binds and links us as artists and is the meta substance of our work. We insert the prefix of Quantum, adding this to Botho/Ubuntu to address the social justice and human rights issues unfolding in the domain of 4IR, where quantum computing is driving exponential advances in technology that society is not yet equipped to regulate or govern. Marwala affirms how 4IR technologies have disrupted democracy (Marwala 2020: 226). We turn to Ubuntu to seek guidance in this ethical lacuna. The African moral and ethical philosophy that informs all African philosophy may offer hope in the face of dystopian futures (Ramose 1999; 2003). Quantum Botho/Ubuntu is designed to address the misuse of 4IR technology towards producing a Prosocial VR film. Quantum Botho/Ubuntu informs the Afrocyborg Collective’s VR films, designed to move the conversation forward from Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, written to address the zeitgeist of the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR) and the technology of the twentieth-century personal computer. This research, by contrast, is situated in the twenty-firstcentury context of the 4IR, where VR headsets are immersive computing devices used in the exhibition of VR films. In 2 Mboti defines Botho/Ubuntu as: “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” (in Nguni languages), “motho ke motho ka batho” (in Sotho languages), “a person is a person through other persons” or “I am because we are” (in English) (Mboti 2015: 127). “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up in yours” (Tutu 1999: 31). 3 this research, I argue that the VR headset is a cyborg3 device that modifies the human body and consciousness in ways that the exhibition of formal cinema cannot achieve. The material object that is the VR headset has significant consequences to lived social realities, not only for those who use this medium but, in fact, for all humans using computers as immersive computing begins to replace laptops and desktops (Schwab 2018: 167). This moment in history is critical because it describes the beginning of wo/men in Africa negotiating access to VR, AR and XR, which are forecast to become the future of immersive computing in the twenty-first century (Schwab 2018: 6; Goldman Sachs 2016: 4; Scoble & Israel 2017: 22; Pell 2017: xv; Linowes 2017: 7). In the production of two VR short films, I build on the “African cyborg” as an agent of “technological and social change” (Okoye 2014: 64). By blending African womanism with technofeminism, I draw on the work of Donna Haraway (1991, 2016, 2018 & 2021); Judy Wajcman (2004); Sue Short (2005), and Chela Sandoval (2000); to develop cyborg theoretical discourse to include a womanist, Africa centric filmmaking focus. I interrogate my own “white fragility”4 (DiAngelo 2018) by questioning the role of technology outlined in Western technofeminism, which underpins various intersectional and technological inequalities. In doing so, I re-read the power structures embedded in the high techné medium of VR through a lens of afro-feminist and African Science Fiction authors, namely: Credo Mutwa (1965); Nnedi Okorafor (2014; 2015; 2019), Florence Okoye (2014); Obioma Nnaemeka (1995; 2004) Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi (1985). The VR camera, the central material object in this research, generates the cinematic images viewed in the VR headset when watching VR films; it also uses exponential5 computing and AI technologies, which are coded into the VR camera, which is controlled via a smartphone application (insta360.com 2021). This technology, newly emerging from the promethean 3 The term “cyborg” was first conceived in 1960 for NASA space travel to describe how “man” might merge with technology to adapt to life in space (Clynes & Kline 1960: 73). 4 “White fragility” is defined by Robin DiAngelo as a distinct set of psychological behaviors triggered by racial tension when white people are confronted with racial inequality. Instead of acknowledging racism, white people become reactive and divisive, which is a strategy to maintain racial superiority, entitlement and advantage (DiAngelo 2018: v). 5 Exponential computing is the basis for the technological Singularity theorised by Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005), where he claims that human to cyborg evolution will see nanobots interfacing with human biology “to vastly extend the human experience by creating virtual reality from within the nervous system” (Kurzweil 2005: 37). Kurzweil’s Singularity has been the subject of much critique, particularly from VR pioneer Jaron Lanier who accuses Kurzweil of technological determinism and producing a totalising grand narrative based on Judeo-Christian eschatology (Lanier 2010: 117). 4 furnace of 4IR, builds on what Haraway said three decades ago by juxtaposing the biotech/infotech nexus, which defines the SF cyborg construct. Marwala describes cyborg programming built into the tools of 4IR as a “confluence of the physical, digital and biological spheres through AI, automation, biotechnology, nanotechnology and communications technologies” (Marwala 2020: 6). VR technology exhibits human-to-cyborg modification as it seeks to expand the human gaze from 180 degrees of the current human eye spectrum to a 360 degree fully immersive cyborg-gaze, or “exponential” gaze. This research focuses on how exponential computing has created these two critical devices, namely the VR camera and VR headset, which together produce the technology to generate a new kind of world- changing fiction. Like Haraway, I argue that these “communications technologies and biotechnologies are the crucial tools recrafting our bodies” (Haraway 1991: 164). My research observations, however, pertain strictly to the domain of VR technology and how these new 4IR tools enable new social relations for women in African filmmaking. For this purpose, this research explores the following questions: 1. In what ways does an Afrocyborg, technopolitical, technofeminist framework help advance an African filmmaking discourse and praxis? 2. How can African women filmmakers collaborate to construct prosocial African Science Fiction in Virtual Reality filmmaking? 3. What transgressive and transformative gaze regimes make a technofeminist Virtual Reality approach contribute to the decolonial undoing of oppressive power structures? This research investigates the VR filmmaking process itself as a cyborg feminist technopolitical6 alliance, which describes how the Afrocyborg VR Collective, namely Moratiwa Molema and myself, went about making two prosocial African Science fiction films while learning to use the VR tools that shaped the making of our VR “worlds”. “Worlding” is an overwhelming responsibility and craft for the filmmaker, who must also be cognisant of the charge to ensure this nascent medium's endurance and conceptual cohesion (Tricart 2018: 114). 6 The term “technopolitical” refers to “technopolitics”, which is enhanced by ICTs. Technopolitics leverages the efficacy of communication technologies to achieve political freedom, empowerment and governance; while transforming traditional democratic practices (Kurban, Peña-Lopez & Haberer 2016: 515). 5 Secondly, this creative research will also focus on the cyborg nature of the VR medium, which can blur the boundaries of reality by fusing the digital with the physical domains. I argue this based on the capacity of the technological medium of VR to possess the ability to act on the body and consciousness of the viewer in exponential ways as a result of the heightened neurological and somatic phenomena in VR known as “presence”, “embodied cognition” and “behaviour modification” (Tricart 2018: 38; Bailenson 2018: 28; Schwab & Davis 2018: 167; Lanier 2017: 58, 95). Lastly, in answering the research question of how prosocial VR might be constructed in the genre of African Science Fiction, I argue that the powerful somatic cyborg fusion of biotech and infotech in the VR medium, with its ability to impact the viewer in ways that produce a measurable change in terms of behaviour modification, can therefore potentially undo the damage of “poverty porn” and “Hegelian tropes” of misrepresentations of Africa in VR. This is possible when applied in the mode of Prosocial VR. The central idea of the Afrocyborg infuses current African realities into global cyborg discourse to position Africa at the centre of our collective VR narratives. The cyborg-esque splicing together of the Afrocyborg neologism is triangulated across the five chapters in this creative research PhD. The figure below shows patterns of “consilience” or overlapping common ground in the theoretical themes outlined by consolidating and signposting the linkages and connections explored across the five chapters. 6 Figure 9: Circles of Consilience linking cyborg theory to social justice theory, 4IR theory, Prosocial VR theory and Ubuntu philosophy Chapter outline Chapter One: How the Afrocyborg VR Collective applies Technofeminist cyborg theory when making VR films in the African SF context. This chapter will articulate how the Afrocyborg VR Collective applies technofeminism7 and cyborg theory as a practical methodology for making VR films in Southern Africa. Following Haraway’s many examples of blending cyborg technofeminist and intersectional examples of Science Fiction with Science Fact, our Afrocyborg cinematic representations are technoscience manifestations of African Science Fiction interpretations of the cyborg, rendered in the high techné medium of VR. The Afrocyborg is both an embodied cinematic semiotic and a lived reality that informs the creative practice of technological agency and mutual support in this mode of collaborative filmmaking. This collaboration is necessitated by the fact that filmmaking is a resource and labour-intensive professional practice, requiring a crew or collective of people performing multiple tasks to achieve the outcome. As such, the 7 Technofeminism is “the complex ways in which women’s everyday lives and technological change interrelate in the age of digitalisation” (Wajcman 2004: 14). The Afrocyborg VR Collective Praxis & Afrocyborg Cinematic Semiotics Chapter 1: Technofeminism & "Cyborgology" AKA Cyborg Theory: Haraway (1991, 1995, 2016), Sandoval (2000), Wajcman (2004), Eglash, Short (2005), Benjamin (2016), Gray (1995) Gray, Mentor & Sigueroa-Sarriera (2021), Okoye (2014) Chapter 3 & 4: Prosocial VR Theory: Bailenson (2018), Shriram, Youn Oh (2017), D’Errico, Leone, Schmid & D’Anna (2017), Lanier (2013, 2014 & 2017), Zoglami (2021), Okwonko (2022), Lane (2018 & 2020), Jones (2020), Wallis & Ross (2020) Chapter 2, 3 & 4: 4IR Theory: Marwala (2020), Benyera (2021), Schwab (2016 & 2018) Kurzweil (2005), Harari (2015), Hall & Takashi (2017), Woolley (2020), Zuboff (2019) & Schneider (2019) Chapter 2, 3 & 4: Social Justice Theory: DiAngelo (2018), Fanon (1952), Biko, S (1987), James (1954), Mbembe (2016 & 2019), Siegal (2022) Chapter 4 & 5: Botho/Ubuntu Theory: Bantu (2013), Biko, H (2019), Ramose (1999 & 2003), Mboti (2015), More (2004), Siegel (2022) 7 Afrocyborg Collective embrace the methodology of technoscience empowerment through technofeminism to get our VR films made. We illustrate this point with a thought experiment called the “Dora Milaje mind trick”. Chapter Two: How the Afrocyborg VR X applies 21st century and 4IR steam skills specific to VR film production as a political, educational future-proof empowerment strategy. Chapter Two explores how VR 360 cinema is a form of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics) technology, merging immersive computer technology with high-end techné filmmaking towards future-proofing our students for careers yet unknown as we travel deeper into the 4IR. The educational ethos informs our positionality as colleagues, lecturers and media practitioners of sharing knowledge with our students, especially women students because sub-Saharan African women and girls remain particularly disadvantaged in accessing STEAM education, where under-representation in STEAM careers is rooted in discrimination, biases, social norms and expectations according to UNESCO (UNESCO 2017: 32). Several barriers to entry alienate women from STEM careers that include: gender inequality, societal gender role stereotypes, various forms of discrimination and prejudice, including unequal remuneration based on the gendered division of labour (UNESCO 2018: 50). African women need improved access to STEM/STEAM education, which is a Human Right, not merely Woman’s Rights (UNESCO 2018:32; Wajcman 2004: 27). Chapter Three: VR as a non-binary cyborg technology applied as a prosocial antidote to “poverty porn” and “Hegelian tropes” of misrepresentation in African VR narratives. In this chapter, I outline the ethical and moral conundrum of 4IR in Africa and proffer Quantum Botho/Ubuntu as an Afrocentric solution articulated in the mode of Prosocial VR. This debate is pertinent since VR is a cyborg technology because it collapses boundaries between the observer and the observed, the filmmaker and the audience. This is evidenced by the fact that VR can augment and modify human behaviours across multiple domains, including the corporeal, psychological, somatic, educational, medical, and metaphysical. Specific VR phenomena include: “synaesthesia” (Ross 2018: 2), “awe” (Chirico, Ferrise, Cordella, & Gaggioli 2018: 1), “embodied cognition” (Bailenson 2018: 29), and “body transfer” (Bailenson 2018: 58). VR, therefore, has the unique capacity to act on the human body and mind to augment behaviour through the use of this tool. Therefore, VR is a cyborg technology. 8 Based on vexing socio-political-economic concerns around the recolonisation of Africa and data colonialism (Benyera 2021: 139), in addition to the amplified physiological effects produced by the medium of VR, the Afrocyborg VR X applied the theoretical lens of Prosocial VR as outlined by Aitamurto, Stevenson Won and Zhou (2021), Shriram, Youn Oh, and Bailenson (2017), and Herrera and Bailenson (2021). I argue for Prosocial VR as per Bailenson (2018), which I contrast with examples of “empathy machine” (Milk 2015), “poverty porn” (Kahiu 2017) and Hegelian stereotypes of African narratives in VR. Chapter Four: Prosocial VR in the creative praxis of Quantum Botho/Ubuntu in the making of The Cosmic Egg and The Eye of Rre Mutwa. In this chapter, I present a summary of applied semiotics evidenced in the making of The Cosmic Egg and The Eye of Rre Mutwa using Sue Short’s rubric in Cyborg Cinema and Contemporary Subjectivity (2005), which underscores the theoretical constructs of neo- Marxism, Feminism, Postmodernism, and Post-Colonialism, all of which underpin Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, as well as both VR narratives produced by the Afrocyborg VR X. We apply the methodology of Phatsimo Sunstrum, who uses time re-mapping to transform ancient African mythological narratives into African futurism (Phatsimo Sunstrum 2013: 116). In the making of The Cosmic Egg, which was shot in Gaborone, Botswana; directed by Moratiwa Molema in collaboration with The New Moon ensemble – a collective of dancers, musicians, poets and singers; Molema locates the genealogy of the Afrocyborg in African antiquity, specifically San mythology. The Cosmic Egg is a traditional Setswana dance musical, where an anciently futuristic ostrich egg hunt turns into an eco-time-travel mystery featuring Afrocyborg dancers performing a call to environmental consciousness. Similarly, in making the second VR film titled, The Eye of Rre Mutwa – an Afrocyborg Homage to Credo Vasamazulu Mutwa 1921–2020, I apply Phatsimo Sunstrum’s method of generating African Science Fiction by transforming Mutwa’s ancient accounts of Zulu folk mythology into intergalactic space travel. I experiment with the VR gaze by teleporting the viewer to a mythical planet in the shape of an All-Seeing Eye, thereby honouring Credo Mutwa as a seer. This is conceptually amplified by the viewer’s cyborg ability to see in 360 degrees. Mutwa is depicted as a cyborg, living breathing, speaking planet. This is an ironic visual entendre for the medium of VR, which is fundamentally a worlding tool. 9 Drawing on the cyborg scholarship of Eglash (1999), I experiment with fractal VR cinematography as a cyborg gaze tool to fracture distinctions between the two characters who become one visually. This application of cyborg theory in generating fractal VR cinematography renders it almost impossible to tell where one character begins and the other character ends. This effect erases boundaries and binaries within the VR cinematic world. I argue that this is an instantiation of bell hooks’ “oppositional gaze” because it is a critical gaze that collapses binary categories creating a representation of resistance, acknowledging the various struggles for freedom that politicise the act of “looking” to resist neo-colonial dominant power structures (hooks 1992: 116). In merging identities in the experiment with fractal cinematography, I interrogate my positionality as a white Semitic woman through DiAngelo’s lens of “white fragility” (2018). Fractal cinematography becomes a way to assimilate African identities and cultures as per Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, where forming networks of multi-cultural affinity is rendered visible. Here I apply the visual theory of Laruelle (2011), and the “fractal vision of the world”, which he claims renews notions of “the self” as a “microcosm” and “God” as a “macrocosm”. These ideas resonate with the central themes in The Eye of Rre Mutwa, which is a homage to a High Isanusi and luminary isiZulu Sangoma; fractal cinematography in VR, in this instance, is designed to simulate “awe” and generic SF conventions of the supernatural and spiritual dimensions. Chapter Five: Findings and conclusions: The medium is the muthi.8 This chapter is a reflection on the technical and logistic lessons learned from the collective VR filmmaking process by summarising the key learning moments in the production and distribution of our two VR films at three South African festivals: 1. The Virtual National Arts Festival in 2020 2. The pan-African VR showcase at the RapidLion Film Festival in 2021 3. FNB Art Joburg: Open City Art Film programme in 2021. These findings are triangulated with the summary of the cyborg film analysis, as echoed in the Quantum Botho/Ubuntu proposition. This conceptual plasma binds the films and the filmmakers together. Both The Cosmic Egg and The Eye of Rre Mutwa have sought to activate elements of healing, muthi or social redress in the two VR films we have made. As such, we argue that the medium of VR is indeed the muthi when used in the mode of 8 “Muthi” is traditional African medicine (Ntshangase 2012: 48). 10 Prosocial VR. I paraphrase how these two films transgress and transform the neocolonial gaze of oppressive power structures. Since an analysis of the two VR films appears in Chapter Four, synopses of The Cosmic Egg and The Eye of Rre Mutwa follow to illustrate the various theoretical arguments which will be made in Chapter One. Figure 10: Virtual Reality film poster for The Cosmic Egg; written, directed, choreographed, production designed and produced by Moratiwa Molema in collaboration with The New Moon Ensemble and The Afrocyborg Collective. My role in this production was cinematographer, co-producer, on-set sound recordist, co-character stylist on set, and offline editing and sound design in post-production. 11 Figure 11: VR film poster for The Eye of Rre Mutwa. It uses a fractal VR cinematography technique inspired by Ron Eglash’s examples of African hair braiding as fractal geometry in African ethnomathematics, which denotes infinite fluid identities of possibility (Eglash 1995: 22). The endless feedback loop conjures the divine (Eglash 1999: 83). This aesthetic shot design invokes the supernatural dimensions of SF as part of a spiritual honouring of the late Sangoma Credo Mutwa. The Cosmic Egg synopsis San rock art inspired the posthuman cyborg eco-myth in the VR film, The Cosmic Egg, written and directed by Moratiwa Molema and performed by the New Moon ensemble based in Gaborone, Botswana. In her traditional Motswana dance musical meets African Science Fiction film, anciently futuristic African cyborgs perform an ostrich egg hunt, which turns into 12 an eco-conscious time-travel mystery. Evidence shows pre-historic cyborgs in San mythology and rock art depicting human-animal transhuman beings from as early as 27 000 BCE (Lewis-Williams 2011: 27). As such, The Cosmic Egg features human-animal-spirit- machine-cyborg dancers who urge us to consider environmentally sustainable practices, if we are to avoid paying the ultimate price for our collective environmental degradation. Ostrich people play the protagonists in the film, where bird-human-cyborgs lay three metaphorical eggs, called Wisdom, Appreciation, and Harmony. Three time-travelling intergalactic wise women known as Egg Blessers arrive from the future when they hear the “sound of the fertilisation of hope. They arrived from a thousand galaxies, bringing blessings and sounding the rattles of creation” (Molema 2020). After a hunting party steals the eggs and drinks their cosmic muthi, the hunters become intoxicated and realise that these are not ordinary eggs. The Egg Blessers restore environmental equilibrium as sound waves penetrate the shells of the eggs and cause the chicks to hatch into future-cyborg dancers. The Eye of Rre Mutwa synopsis The Eye of Rre Mutwa, An Afrocyborg Homage to Credo Vasamazulu Mutwa 1921–2020, draws inspiration from the writing of Credo Mutwa and his African cyborg visions of mythic beings who animate Zulu mythology in Indaba My Children (1965). Ironically, Mutwa, the medicine man, sculptor, painter, prophet and cultural custodian of African orality, passed away just shy of 100 years old when the world went into global lockdown due to the Covid- 19 pandemic. The film attempts to mitigate the fact that he was denied a state funeral considering his enormous contribution to Zulu cultural stewardship outlined in his writing and timeless knowledge of indigenous medicine. The Eye of Rre Mutwa explores the interconnectedness of human suffering and technological “development”, which equates to the price Africa has had to pay for “progress”. The philosophical and material objects used to create this film are the VR camera and the VR Headset, media tools emerging from the Promethean furnace of 4IR. As such, the Afrocyborg characters portrayed by Albert Ibokwe Khoza and Patricia Boyer apply Marwala’s injunction to analyse 4IR concerning the historic socio-political and economic inequalities embedded in the First (1IR), Second (2IR) and Third (3IR) Industrial Revolutions, as outlined in Closing the Gap – The Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa (2020). Building on the work of Afrofuturist scholar Michael Chaney, I develop the concept of the “slave-cyborg” in Slave 13 Cyborgs and the Black Infovirus: Ishmael Reed’s Cybernetic Aesthetics (2003) by examining my culpability in the process of techno-cultural imperialism via an exploration of “White fragility” (DiAngelo 2018). This reflexive contemplation examines what it means to be a white South African in the twenty-first century by learning to see the historical patterns of oppression built into Western wealth accumulation strategies endemic to 1IR, 2IR, 3IR and 4IR. In this context, slave-cyborgs and wo-man-machines are interpreted through an intergalactic, postmodern lens to become proto-African-cyborgs. The Eye of Rre Mutwa is an exploration of how an African female gaze in VR might be leveraged to disavow the techno-cultural imperialism that privileges the Western male gaze of Silicon Valley, which frames Africa as technologically “under-developed” or “lagging behind the rest of the world” (Schwab & Davis 2018: 60). 14 CHAPTER 1: How the Afrocyborg VR Collective applies technofeminist cyborg theory when making VR films in the African SF context “The cyborg is an agent of revolution and social change, not just a passive recipient of imposed technologies” (Okoye 2014: 76). “Networking' is both a feminist practice and a multinational corporate strategy - weaving is for oppositional cyborgs” (Haraway 1991: 170). In A Cyborg Manifesto (1991), Haraway calls for polyvocal “affinity” among multicultural women to build an anti-racist, anti-sexist, post-feminist network of cooperation in the domain of work and professional action (Haraway 1991: 155). The technogenesis of the Afrocyborg is a twenty-first century “call and response”9 to Haraway, prompted by the question of how African women might forge new connections in visualising a prosocial, Africa-centric gaze in the exponential medium of VR through Afro-feminist-techno-science solidarity, in the process of collaborative filmmaking. Haraway claims that the hybridised woman-machine cyborg10 is a Science Fiction metaphor constituted from the international women’s movements. This myriad pastiche of multiple identities is “a crucial collective object” of world-changing fact and fiction (Haraway 1991: 49). Women’s solidarity is critical for the technopolitics of cyborg intersectionality and is explored in this research as a technofeminist stratagem to “seize the tools that mark us as other” (Haraway 1991: 175). We use these tools, namely the VR camera and Head-Mounted Display (HMD), to tell stories with the power to subvert signifiers and change narratives. This change produces agency and the possibility of apprehending oppression (Haraway 1991: 149). 9 Referencing the work of Nketia (1952), Finnegan defines “call and response” as an antiphonal mode of song, occurring widely in Africa, featuring repeated vocal interchanges between a leader, and a group of people, singing or chanting in a to and fro manner (Finnegan 2012: 253). 10 The term “cyborg” refers to a cybernetic organism. The cyborg is a transhuman and postmodern semiotic tech tool with which to read texts, written or visual. Cyborgs blur boundaries and erase binary ways of seeing the world. Cyborgs are post-gender and resist racial classification. Cyborgs appear in a multitude of forms, in any combination of human, machine or animal. Even multiplicities of beings living together symbiotically are considered “cyborgs”. The cyborg is a mechanism to personify, anthropomorphise, understand, and critically visualise postmodernity in terms of ontology, embodiment and representation (Haraway 1991; Gray 1995: 2). 15 The semiology of the VR camera, like the sign of the cyborg, challenges dualism and destabilises dominant narratives of cyborgs as agents of neo-colonial Star Wars11. Like Haraway’s cyborg, the Afrocyborg resists the teleology of Star Wars12 played out in galactic cinematic syntax as colonial Sci-Fi narratives of space colonisation (Haraway 1991: 151). Afrocyborg representations in both SF VR films in this research project are concerned with the rehabilitation and decolonisation of Western Science Fiction cyborgs. By applying the lens of African Science Fiction, the production of Afrocyborg VR films are distinctly different constructions of a collective myth with which to see or visualise the shared political struggles of race, gender and class from multiple points of view, which mirrors our collaborative filmmaking methodology. The discourse of African Science Fiction13 is a counter-hegemonic teaching, learning and thinking tool. African Science Fiction14 offers a liberatory framework to re-envision new Afro- futures, which subvert Hollywood metanarratives of cultural imperialism, built on privileging the Western male gaze, which sees Africa through the lens of Hegelian dehumanisation. For example, in the domain of VR distribution, the with.in VR platform exhibits VR films of a wide variety of genres; however, the films made on the African continent are primarily produced by Western filmmakers, who produce racist stereotypes of African representation. The VR film, Waves of Grace (Arora & Milk 2015), is shot in Liberia and follows the abject story of Decontee Davis, an “Ebola survivor”. Her suffering is represented by labouring the trope of poverty porn. Dismantling this persistent neo-colonial gaze requires a “rehabilitation of reason” at a planetary scale to reinstall African futures (Mbembe 2019). The African cyborg is an instantiation of this call to rehabilitate reason. The Afrocyborg becomes the semiotic protagonist of oppositional politics, resisting the telos of Star Wars (Lucas 1987), where Sci- 11 The original 1977 Star Wars Science Fiction film, directed by George Lucas, was inspired by World War II ideology and technology, evidenced in, From World War to Star Wars: Imperial Officers, From World War to Star Wars: Rise of An Empire, and From World War to Star Wars: Spaceships, Submarines, and Seismic Charges (starwars.com 2014). Haraway refers to Star Wars as an “apocalypse waged in the name of defence, about the final appropriation of women's bodies in a masculinist orgy of war” (Haraway 1991: 154). 12 Haraway uses the metaphor of Star Wars as a play on Lucas’ SF film but also to refer to the Reagan administration’s appropriation of Star Wars language in the Cold War rhetoric against Soviet Russia, whom Reagan referred to as “the evil empire”, going so far as to name the US Defence Programme operation “Star Wars” (Wacjman 2004: 96). 13 Nnedi Okorafor defines African futurism or African Science Fiction as “somewhat similar to Afrofuturism, but is more directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology, and perspective, where the centre is non-Western” (Okorafor 2019: 83). 14 African Science Fiction is defined as Afrodiasporic technoscience culture, which began as a science fiction literary and music genre. Twenty-first-century Afrofuturism expresses pan-African solidarity through transdisciplinary modes of imagining the future for all African people (Eshun 2003: 289; Womack 2013: ch1: para10; Phillips 2015: ch 1: para 14; Anderson & Jones 2016: ch 1: para 5). 16 Fi high-tech story worlds are militarised metaphors of global North domination (Haraway 1991: 196). This gaze, produced by Western Science Fiction, replicates an othering gaze of Africa. Haraway refers to this Scientific Western gaze, or “conquering gaze”, as “the god trick”. This gaze assumes power by techno-scientific “objectivity” to inscribe bodies of the “Other” (Haraway 1988: 581). This gaze signifies industrialised, militarised, racist, and male- dominant societies. The god trick15 is the voracious eye of Western phallocentrism,16 which seeks to dominate the world with autonomous power (Haraway 1988: 581). Haraway calls for new ways of seeing, invoking a feminist gaze to revisualise the world by turning it upside down (Haraway 1988: 586). The female gaze is, therefore, a revolt against the male gaze of “the master, the man, the One God, whose Eye produces, appropriates, and orders all difference” (Haraway 1988: 587). The Afrocyborg, like Haraway’s cyborg is a Sci-Fi intersectional creature of the imagination, designed to resist and re-write neo-colonial, techno-paternalist narratives (Haraway 1991: 155). The VR camera, with its multiple lenses, which creates an exponentially expanded gaze, is an appropriate instrument to accomplish a rehabilitated gaze of African narrative representation. The African cyborg, or “Afrocyborg”, is devised to explore collective VR filmmaking, visualised in this research as a re-imagining of Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, which materialised at the apogee of the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR), defined by the arrival of the personal computer (PC), which was adopted for the first time in the mid-1980s at a domestic level in society. The cyber-culture of the 1990s shaped Haraway’s writing as the Internet became a global phenomenon. This is evidenced in Simians, Cyborgs and Women (1991), and Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium (1998). Haraway reads the polyvocal woman-machine cyborg as a politically active postmodern metaphor advocating technoscience empowerment. For Haraway, the arrival of the PC signals a major technological leap forward in human history, which mirrors the need for a revival of Marxist Feminism to embrace technofeminist and intersectional political affinities that elevate technologically relevant practices of connection and solidarity among global women’s 15 “The god trick” is Haraway’s critique of white Western technoscience practice, which she claims is an artificially constructed idea of science being endowed with universal reason and rationality. Western science assumes the position of dominance by claiming to be objective and detached from the subject matter. This is false since all knowledge is a product of ontology – race and gender, for example. Modern science was conceived devoid of both (Haraway 1992: 189 & Wajcman 2004: 83). 16 Phallocentrism is defined by Patti Lather as a male-dominated discourse of knowledge and social practices which define and constrain women. Familiarity with this discourse provides the tools to dismantle patriarchy (Lather 1991: 157). 17 movements at the end of the twentieth century. Here Haraway uses the language of semiotics to describe the practice of Science Fiction writing, computer coding and internet connectivity interchangeably. The PC constructed a new techno-cultural zeitgeist in society, stimulating the need for women to move beyond Marxist Feminist notions of technophobia, and the demonisation of technology, which eschewed the adoption of computing technology as a tool of masculine Capitalism. Haraway’s cyborg was constructed as a myth/tool to see the need for women to embrace new technofeminist and intersectional coalitions concerning the emergence of the PC and, so too, techno-cyber culture. The Afrocyborg construct adapts Haraway’s theory into both the technofeminist VR film collective and the conceptual cyborg semiotic rubric applied in making the two VR research films. The Afrocyborg creative framework is mirrored in practice – both in front of; and behind the multiple lenses of the VR camera in the filmmaking process. This collective creative action is a contribution towards moving the conversation around A Cyborg Manifesto forward in time from the context of Haraway’s 3IR cyborg, with a focus on feminist connections of the “networked” circuitry of the personal computer; towards the new zeitgeist of 4IR exponential technologies; specifically the VR HMD as immersive computing. A VR Headset is a computer strapped onto the head of the viewer/user, with hand controllers used to navigate the VR software interface, just like one uses a mouse on a laptop or desktop computer. The VR Headset is, therefore, a cyborg device because it disrupts the boundaries between human and machine by teleporting the user into an artificial world constituted by a computer interface. The VR HMD needs to be connected to the Internet to operate. Immersive content is viewed from inside the HMD, where the viewer is immersed in the world of content. This connectivity of technology and collective creative action echoes Haraway’s Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium (1998) text, which is an email address signalling a net of cyborg stories and narrative worlding via textual analysis to uncover the underlying politics of oppression in Western technoscience practices. Building on Haraway’s work, the Afrocyborg enacts the technopolitical drama of race, gender and class alliances in the African context, struggling toward equitable inclusion for technofeminists engaged in the action of 360-degree cinematic narrative “world building”17 in VR as technoscience (Tricart 2017: 96). 17 “Worldbuilding” in VR filmmaking refers to the ability of the medium to deliver immersion, presence and embodiment (Tricart 2017: 89). VR places the viewer at the centre of ever-expanding concentric circles of 18 Our technofeminist practice mirrors the technoscience of VR. Like the HMD, the VR camera also requires connectivity to the World Wide Web to function via a smartphone-enabled application (app), which operates the camera remotely. Collaboration and computation are about connection. Like Haraway’s cyborg, the Afrocyborg is needy for friendship, creativity and play. She is both “myth and tool”, “representation and instrument”, a figure interfacing automation and autonomy (Haraway 1995: 1). The creative collaboration between Molema and myself reflects the creative need for intimacy and “fruitful couplings between organism and machine” (Haraway 1991: 150). Since the cyborg is a “disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self” that feminists must de/code (Haraway 1991: 163), the Afrocyborg, like Haraway’s cyborg, is a creature of both fact and fiction. The transgression of binaries and boundaries creates the possibility of affinity and coalition politics as a generative cypher open to multiple interpretations that resist totalising readings of any one kind of feminism. In situating the applied genres of feminism that inform our use of a new kind of Afro- technofeminism that constitutes the Afrocyborg, we hear the call of Nigerian womanist Obioma Nnaemeka who challenges African scholars to appropriate theoretical constructs rooted in African cosmology. The Afrocyborg construct answers this call at the level of filmic praxis. Nnaemeka is critical of what she sees as the self-indulgent cerebral “gymnastics” of Western feminism (Nnaemeka 2004: 364). Haraway’s writing is the subject of critique by global South feminists who find the ironic tone of the Cyborg Manifesto “impenetrable”, “infuriating”, and even “bourgeois” (Wajcman 2004: 95). Furthermore, Haraway offers no decisive action as to how women should go about engaging technoscience, and undoing male domination in this sphere, other than by writing. By way of responding to Nnaemeka’s critique of Western feminism, the Afrocyborg Collective makes an active effort to transform this theory into practice in the making of our two VR films. In the case study outlined below, we construct a thought experiment, which MWe name the Dora Milaje mind trick, as a theoretical construct rooted in African cosmology: imagery, effectively replacing the old rectangular/square cinema and TV formats that have been in place since 1896 (Hall & Takashi 2017: 1). 19 This thought experiment is motivated by the fact that when Molema and I set out to correct the technologically gendered division of labour18,19 by overcoming our tech-inferiority complex about operating high techné20 VR film equipment, we could not identify a single woman who could operate VR cameras or VR post-production to collaborate with. As a result, we applied an Afro-technofeminist21 method to inform the autodidactic action required to learn and teach ourselves how to operate VR equipment to produce our SF films. Here, we apply strategies of “oppositional consciousness” since XR industries on the African continent are male dominated with 80.4% representation versus 19.6% of women working in XR on the continent, according to the XR Africa Report (Okonkwo et al. 2022: 32). The Dora Milaje mind trick – a Technofeminist thought experiment By way of overcoming my technological inferiority complex, there were many moments when I/we had to perform a motivational thought experiment, which we named the “Dora Milaje22 Mind Trick”. We subverted this from the “Jedi Mind Trick”23, a Star Wars SF mind control technique, which we based on the Black Panther (Coogler 2018) warrior women of Wakanda. While critics might sneer at the idea of a comic book-based action superhero film as the 18 SAFT perpetuates gendered division of labour by stereotyping women who are framed as inept and incompetent “sex objects” and routinely perform “unskilled”, undervalued labour such as costume, make-up and styling (Ntoele & Atouguia 2017: 9). SAFT technically undermines women through institutionalised hiring practices, type-casting female filmmakers as production secretaries, personal assistants, “props mistresses” and “continuity girls” (Ntoele & Atouguia 2017: 15). 19 Historically, the cultural construct of SAFT is shaped by racism, sexism, colonialism, and apartheid systems of political power, privilege and domination, which remain entrenched by patriarchal practices. SWIFT note that 78% of women in SAFT experience gendered division of labour and discrimination based on gender, while 58% of women experience racial discrimination (Ntoele & Atouguia 2017: 14 & 15). 20 Heidegger describes technology as techné (1977), where the word “technology” is traced to the ancient Greek meaning, rooted in the word “technikon”, which denotes techné. Techné delineates the art of the mind, fine art, and the art and skill of a craftswoman (Heidegger 1977: 5). “High techné” is cyber-culture or posthuman cyborg optimisation of the Heidiggerian term “techné” coined by Rutsky (1999). 21 While acknowledging that technofeminism is a genre of postmodern feminism that refuses binary thinking and embraces gender fluidity, Haraway goes so far as to imagine the cyborg as a creature born of a post-gender world (Haraway 1991: 150); the context of gendered division of labour in SAFT cannot be immediately transcended through SF imagination alone. Critical community work still needs to be done. In this context, African womanism cannot ignore the impact of the post-colonial condition and persistent forms of neo- colonialism that continue to affect the lives of African women, as is the case in SAFT, where women continue to experience race, gender and techno-prejudice (Ntoele & Atouguia 2017: 15). 22 The Dora Milaje cyborg-warriors in Black Panther who defend King T’Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman, are based on the real life “Warrior Women of Dahomey”. “The Amazons of Dahomey” were an all-woman army in pre-colonial West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries (New York Sun 2014). 23 According to starwars.fandom.com a “Jedi Mind Trick” is a special ability bestowed upon Jedi by The Force. The Jedi Mind trick allows the mostly white male Jedi warriors to control the thoughts, behaviors and actions of others, for their own advantage (starwars.fandom.com 2020). 20 subject of Womanist research, Fanon affirms the damaging effects of semiotics on the minds of both black and white children. Socialisation and internalisation of popular culture representation play a formative role in consolidating identity and phycological agency. The decisive role that comic books play in the formation of stereotypes and their embedded political messages of power struggles and universal hierarchies of domination cannot be underestimated as they shape the consciousness of youth (Fanon 1952: 22). In the words of Fanon: The Tarzan stories, the sagas of twelve-year-old explorers, the adventures of Mickey Mouse, and all those “comic books” serve actually as a release for collective aggression. The magazines are put together by white men for little white men … In the magazines, the Wolf, the Devil, the Evil Spirit, the Bad Man, the Savage are always symbolised by Negroes or Indians; since there is always identification with the victor, the little Negro, quite as easily as the little white boy, becomes an explorer, an adventurer, a missionary who faces the danger of being eaten by the wicked Negroes (Fanon 1952: 112-113). This racist misrepresentation causes psychopathology, where black children reading these comic books are misinformed by prejudice and mistakenly wish to be white. The Black Panther comics of the 1960s and later the African Science Fiction film became a significant turning point for black popular culture representation, albeit many decades too late. Black Panther (Coogler 2018), based on the Marvel comic book series of the same name, beginning in 1966, was infused with the liberation struggles of the Black Panther political party, who in turn were influenced by the writings of Frantz Fanon (Cleaver 1998: 253). Fanon inspired Steve Biko in South Africa to form the Black Consciousness Movement (Nel 2011: 157). The Dora Milaje mind trick is inspired by the posthumous words of Steve Biko, published after his murder in prison by apartheid police in 1977; where Biko describes Black Consciousness as working toward the psychological liberation from oppression in the form of an “inferiority complex” (Biko 1979: 110). While acknowledging the horror of apartheid and colonialism and their flagrant disregard for Human Rights described by Fanon, and Biko, I could never equate my subjective experiences of relatively minor gender oppression contrast to their experiences. In the context of twenty-first-century social justice, I find the comparative analysis afforded by the premise of intersectionality useful for the sake of this argument. The Dora Milaje mind trick repurposes Biko’s thinking about the need to overcome an “inferiority complex” as a wo/man in relation to the machine by calling into question the binaries of man/woman, nature/culture, 21 rational/irrational, superior/inferior. Dissolving dualism is the work of the cyborg. Binary thinking creates “universalising opposition” that spawns totalising conflicts of “one” or “other”, “sex/gender”, black/white (Haraway 1991: 148). The Dora Milaje mind trick is a self- actualisation technique to overcome inferiority and question superiority in technoscience domains. As Biko says: “Because of their inferiority complex, blacks have tended to listen seriously to what the liberals had to say. With their characteristic arrogance of assuming a monopoly on intelligence” (Biko 1979: 66). In the context of technoscience and technofeminism in Africa, in the zeitgeist of 4IR, we adapt this thinking to apply to women and technology. To overcome our “inferiority complex”, we must question male domination and gendered division of labour with regard to the monopoly on technological intelligence. However, we must also look inward and rehabilitate the psychopathology of sexism. The Dora Milaje mind trick was my way of rehabilitating my psychopathology around my tech-inferiority complex, which consisted of technopolitical affirmations as I sat for hundreds of hours in the online immersion of autodidactic discovery learning via YouTube tutorials while teaching myself how to operate the Insta360One X VR camera, and the editing software to stitch the 360-degree orbital dual video feeds together in Insta360 Studio. I also taught myself how to edit immersive VR 360 video footage in Adobe Premier Pro, export media files, and watch these in an Oculus VR Headset. This was a complex and challenging undertaking since VR leans more towards unfamiliar media domains of ICT cultures than toward cinematic cultural practices that I am more familiar with. While learning these new skills, I would visualise the Dora Milaje in combat mode, brandishing their spears at the enemies of Wakanda. My enemy was my mind playing tricks on me, telling me I was not good enough or would never “get it”. I had to repeat over and over to myself: “I can do this. If I just put in the energy, concentration and notional hours, surely, I can achieve the same degree of competency as anyone else. I might be physically weaker than my male counterparts, but my brain is not impaired. Surely, I can defeat these obstacles with my intellect and dogged persistence?” Learning to overcome feelings of inadequacy around the technical craft and skills required to operate VR technologies necessitated extensive positive self-talk to convince ourselves that we could overcome the various barriers to entry in the local XR industry. However, in watching Black Panther, we could see ourselves. We were blown away by the Dora Milaje, who surround T’Challa and protect Wakanda. Three Dora Milaje were cast from Uganda, 22 Kenya and Zimbabwe in an unprecedented move towards equitable representation in the Marvel Universe of popular culture Hollywood superhero blockbusters. The Dora Milaje represent a popular cultural interpretation of the Amazons of classical antiquity, the all- female army in the kingdom of Dahomey, West Africa, now modern-day Benin (Coleman 2018). The Woman King (Prince-Bythewood 2022) chronicles the warrior women of 1820 Dahomey, with Viola Davis in the lead role. The Dora Milaje mind trick borrows from Fanon and Black Consciousness to generate a twenty-first-century black-tech-consciousness as a technopolitical empowerment strategy for African women working in XR. My rationale is an applied popular culture rendering of reverse psychology. If psychopathology is in part created by media misrepresentation, as Fanon puts it: “… there is a constellation of postulates, a series of propositions that slowly and subtly – with the help of books, newspapers, schools and their texts, advertisements, films, radio – work their way into one’s mind and shape one’s view of the world of the group to which one belongs” (Fanon 1952: 118). Then perhaps the converse is also true. I could perhaps overcome my psychopathology by replaying an empowering visualisation of the Dora Milaje wielding technologically futuristic vibranium weapons to crush my fear. Figure 12: The Dora Milaje Warrior Women of Wakanda. On the left is the Ugandan actress Florence Kasumba, who plays “Ayo”. On the right is the Zimbabwean actress Danai Gurira, who plays “Okoye”. Lupita Amondi Nyong'o from Kenya is also a Dora Milaje, but not visible in this image. The Dora Milaje were the inspiration for the “Dora Milaje Mind Trick”, a strategy used by Afrocyborg Collective to overcome our “inferiority complex” around the daunting task of learning the high techné medium of VR Tabula Rasa, which required overcoming the mental barriers and insecurity around mastering this technology in a male-dominated field (Coogler 2018). 23 Figures 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10: Screen grabs from the Wakanda Forever comic book, co-authored by Nigerian SF author Nnedi Okorafor. In an interview with Marvel Comics, Okorafor describes how she wrote for the Dora Milaje in Wakanda Forever #1 as the series writer: “What I wanted to explore in this series was the Dora Milaje having secrets and struggles beyond just being amazing warriors and making and righting mistakes. I wanted to look at who they were and whom they have gradually become. A lot of these things are subtle in the plot, but if you are willing to look at nuanced moments, you can expect to catch glimpses of the human beings these women are. I think the Dora Milaje are ready for any part of the world! They can deal with any culture, and adjust to any environment, all while maintaining who they are. They are that hardcore!” (Okorafor 2018). This means that they can also flourish in XR tech cultures, and if they can adapt to any environment, surely the Afrocyborg VR X can do the same. This is the premise of our Dora Milaje mind trick. They give us hope for self-actualisation. 24 The Dora Milaje mind trick is an example of creating African indigenous knowledge epistemologies. It is an instance of answering Nnaemeka’s call to action for African scholars to appropriate theoretical constructs rooted in African cosmology (Nnaemeka 2004: 364). This is important, as Nnaemeka finds the Western postmodern feminist mode of theorising foreign to African women because their theories fail the test of African needs and indigenous knowledge epistemologies. Western feminism becomes a harmful tool that essentialises the portrayal of women from the global South (Garritano 2000: 169). The Afrocyborg metaphor applies the principles of African womanist Ogunyemi, who calls on African women to; “aim much higher and knit the world’s black family together to achieve black, not just female, transcendence” (Ogunyemi 2006: 22). The Afrocyborg construct is therefore a synthesis of Womanism and technofeminism, which we believe should be “grounded in black togetherness” as a result of our democratic collective African geo-specificity in the world (Ogunyemi 2006: 35). Our methodology of applied Afro-technofeminism is to merge Afro- feminism or womanism with technofeminism to affect technological self-empowerment in the field of VR media technology. While technofeminism as a discourse is primarily populated with white feminist voices, womanism is different in that it focuses on the past/present subjugation of black people in the face of Western control (Ogunyemi 2006: 22). This accords with the Afrocyborg volition to decolonise African VR narrative representations by disavowing the harmful stereotypes of “poverty porn”. Another example of VR poverty porn on the with.in VR platform (owned by Chris Milk) is the film This is Climate Change: Famine (Dennis & Strauss 2022). Similar to Milk’s problematic VR film, Clouds Over Sidra (Milk 2015), which is also an example of poverty porn (discussed in Chapter Three); This is Climate Change: Famine (Dennis & Strauss 2022) is set in a Somali refugee camp and follows a young mother of eight children. Degaan Abdi’s daughter, Rayaan, is dying of malnutrition. The film crew follow the mother and child into the emergency room, where Rayaan dies. Abdi’s abjection and suffering are exploited using statistics on malnutrition to call on viewers to donate money to the cause. The message is clear: Africa needs rescuing from itself because it is too incompetent to take care of its dying children. The narrative of Africa needing to be rescued by the West perpetuates the same tropes that informed Hegel’s racist assumptions about Africa and the imperialist conquerors and colonialists, who insisted that Africa needed to be enlightened by Christianity and therefore conquered for their good. The argument made by This is Climate Change: Famine (Dennis & Strauss 2022) is that white supremacy can take better care of Africans than they can care 25 for themselves. This is deplorable. The film was shot in 2022. Of all the extraordinary events happening across Africa last year, these filmmakers chose to make a VR film that conforms to every harmful stereotype of Africa. This is evidence of the Western worldview of Africa – a one-dimensional site of perpetual immiseration. Resisting tropes of African immiseration, the Afrocyborg Collective deliberately works in the mode of Prosocial VR currently being produced in the global South, which is referred to as “Fourth Cinema” or “Fourth VR” (Wallis & Ross 2020: 1, 3). Fourth VR transcends the cinematic discourse of Third Cinema to “disrupt” contemporary neo-colonial cinematic practices (Wallis & Ross 2018: 3). Fourth VR is prosocial in negotiating the process of decolonisation and how post-colonial communities articulate their worldview with the tools emerging from the 4IR (Wallis & Ross 2018: 3). Fourth VR challenges stereotypes of indigenous cultures (Wallis & Ross 2018: 4). Recognising the problematics of hierarchies of power at play in the politics of representation as co-equals in the game of “serious play”, Molema and I resist the hierarchy of film crews by preferencing creative acts of collaborative jouissance (Haraway 1995: 149). Building on the work of Barthes, Sandoval proposes emancipatory love as a post-colonial strategy to produce social change. Following Sandoval’s proposal to move through “bliss” and “pain” and then on to creative “jouissance” in making these films, our filmmaking methodology is a form of guerrilla filmmaking in the tradition of Third Cinema in post-colonial Africa. “Guerrilla filmmaking” historically began with “Third Cinema” as a visual theory to oppose the imperial gaze emerging from the cauldron of anti-colonial struggles to achieve political independence in the global South (Mistry & Schummann 2015: xvi). The Third Cinema manifesto,24 written by Solanas and Getino in 1969, was inspired by the modes of guerrilla warfare in the revolutionary fight towards decolonisation (MacKenzie 2014: 207). MacKenzie (2014) describes “Third Cinema” as a call for a new cinema that rejects the capitalist, escapist mode of Hollywood production, which celebrates the director as an “auteur”. The Third Cinema manifestos argue for “a collective, politically engaged cinema” (MacKenzie 2014: 207). In 1969, guerrilla filmmaking borrowed from guerrilla political action, 24 Argentinian filmmakers, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino wrote Towards a Third Cinema: Notes and Experiences for The Development of a Cinema of Liberation in The Third World in 1969 (MacKenzie 2014: 230). 26 where Solas and Getino describe their camera as a gun: “… the camera as our rifle, we do in fact move into a guerrilla activity. This is why strict disciplinary norms govern the work of a film-guerrilla group as to both work methods and security. A revolutionary film group is in the same situation as a guerrilla unit: it cannot grow strong without military structures and command concepts” (MacKenzie 2014: 243). While the literal militarism of early guerrilla filmmaking may no longer be relevant in a post- colonial, post-apartheid South/ern African setting, particularly for progressive, pacifist women filmmakers with revulsion towards the masculinist obsession with violence to generate dramatic conflict in popular culture films, regrettably, many terminologies in the professional practice of filmmaking continue to use words borrowed from military traditions such as a film “shoot”, or the “execution” or “shooting” of a film or scene. The film “recce”, or act of “location scouting”, is also borrowed from reconnaissance missions of scouting the enemy. The film crew is trained and socialised into operating like a troop of soldiers using a vicious pecking order to accomplish the filmic “mission” or military “operation”. This ordains the “Director” with “Drill Sergeant”, with godlike powers of dominance over the lesser members of the crew. As a feminist filmmaker, the language of military violence and dominance is a traumatic and disturbing practice. It is a phallocentric media culture to be arrested in light of the overuse of gun violence in global film cultures and the phenomena of mass school shootings and police brutality in the USA.25 In this regard, our collaboration is based on the principle of co-equal “animatuers” as opposed to the “auteur” model of filmmaking. The Afrocyborg VR Collective subverts the idea of a deified director as an “auteur” because of the democratised formation of communal plurality, underscoring the conscious call to form a collective. This mode of production is liberatory in purpose as it mirrors the Third Cinema manifesto, which argues for collective, politically engaged cinema (MacKenzie 2014: 230). The animateur is a cyborg since she has multiple identities. She is both artist and teacher, filmmaker and academic (Foth 2006: 640). As such, the animateur exhibits a natural aversion to the conventional hierarchies of film production. We prefer to operate as a music ensemble, 25 The Afrocyborg VR X witnessed a prosocial VR film at the NewImage XR Festival in Paris titled 12 Seconds of Gunfire: The True Story of a School Shooting (2019), animated with the VR software Tilt Brush. This film inspired the animated sequence in The Cosmic Egg. 12 Seconds of Gunfire (2019) is based on a true story covered by the Washington Post on school shootings in the USA. This VR film recounts how a boy, Jacob, was killed at school by following his best friend, Ava, as she struggles to deal with the trauma of losing her beloved friend. Ava writes a letter to Donald Trump asking him to change the gun laws of the USA (washingtonpost.com 2019). It is an example of prosocial VR, calling for a ban on guns in US schools. 27 where each member brings their instrument, tool or skill and performs with their degree of agency, and creative expression, within the confines of available resources. For Molema and I, the animateur reflects the cyborg’s aversion to a binary chain of command forms of collective action, choosing instead to celebrate inclusive multiplicity. While observing certain essential precepts of Third Cinema, we also note how guerrilla filmmaking has evolved over time to infer less of a revolutionary meaning and is more often used in the context of low-budget filmmaking. For instance, Eliot Grove, producer and lecturer in film studies, defines Guerrilla Filmmaking as a far cry from Third Cinema's origins in his book Raindance Producers’ Lab: Lo-to-No Budget Filmmaking (2004). Grove gives examples of “Guerrilla Filmmaking” about economic constraints, advising guerrilla crews to shoot without permits to cut costs (Grove 2004: 129). In the making of The Cosmic Egg, location permits were not secured as this would have incurred costs we could not afford. For Molema and me, the animateur is also a cyborg, as she must perform multiple roles on set due to self-funding and budget constraints. As such, we perform multiple roles: writer, director, producer, costume designer and cinematographer. We also recorded sound on set and did the offline edit of the rushes to save time and money in post-production. As agents of technofeminism, we take pleasure in learning new skills and actively challenge ourselves to do so. In this way, the cyborg-animateur borrows from the guerrilla filmmaking methodology of Nollywood filmmakers in Nigeria, who perform multiple roles in the production process due to economic constraints. Like Nollywood filmmakers, the Afrocyborg Collective also embraces the cyborgian “Humanimal”26 term, “raptor”, which draws on the analogy of a bird of prey and its potent hunting abilities to describe a multi-skilled filmmaker. The term “raptor” is frequently used as informal jargon in global television industries to describe an exceptionally skilled practitioner in motion picture medium. Typically, a “raptor” is expected to be able to write, direct, produce, shoot and edit. Per the credits in The Cosmic Egg and The Eye of Rre Mutwa, Molema and I performed all these roles in making these two films. Similar to the persistent militarism endemic to conventional motion picture production, VR also shares its origin in military training, first used as flight sim