About
Virtual Africa is project aiming to promote collaboration between Africans and the diasporas through the creative industries and the interaction of art, science and emerging technologies.
Supported by Leonardo/OLATS, VIRTUAL AFRICA serves as a platform for the emergence of a community of practice in the creative and cultural industries on the African continent and across its diaspora. VIRTUAL AFRICA aims to develop links between these communities and seeks to strengthen exchanges between artistic and scientific cultures. It seeks to increase their visibility, facilitate their cooperation, and support their projects.
VIRTUAL AFRICA aims to bring together a group of cultural, scientific and economic leaders and organizations interested in the implications of technoscience development and its appropriation in artistic and cultural practices. VIRTUAL AFRICA is thus committed to facilitating and developing collaborative projects at both local and international level through the organization of events and the implementation of institutional or informal partnerships. The objective is to create a network of actions and exchanges between individuals (creators, researchers, entrepreneurs, etc.), economic stakeholders (companies, foundations, charities...), and cultural or scientific institutions (museums, galleries, schools, universities...). A network that reflects the diversity of the arts, sciences and technological practices in use in Africa and across its diaspora (in Europe, the Americas, or Asia).
Contact
Adresse postale / Mailing address :
Association Leonardo, 17 rue Emile Dunois, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt
Email :
[email protected]
Advisory Board
Yvan Tina
Lecturer in Digital Media ArtsYvan Tina is a researcher and cultural activist with expertise on transdisciplinary collaborations, cultural mediation, and performance arts. As artistic director of Virtual Africa, he develops publishing and curation strategies to foster art-science-technology initiatives on the African continent and throughout the diasporas. He holds a PhD in Performing Arts from Aix-Marseille University and a PhD in Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Roger Malina
Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology and Professor of PhysicsRoger F. Malina is a space scientist and astronomer, with a specialty in extreme and ultraviolet astronomy, space instrumentation and optics. He is publisher, writer and editor in the new emerging research fields that hybridise the sciences and engineering to the arts, design and humanities. Since 1982, he has served as Executive Editor of the Leonardo Publications at MIT Press. He founded, and serves on the board of two nonprofits, Leonardo ISAST in San Francisco and Leonardo OLATS in Paris. He is an advisor to Join Lifeguard and the Paris School of Art and Design ENSAD. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of Art and Technology and Professor of Physics, at the University of Texas at Dallas. He cofounded the ArtSciLab in the UTD Arts Humanities and Technologies program fall 2013.