OFFLINE AND LOADING

2024

Performance, Digital

Artist/s: Serwah Attafuah

‘OFFLINE AND LOADING’ by multidisciplinary artist, Serwah Attafuah, explores the connections between 16th-century Dutch Vanitas still lifes and contemporary Ghanaian Sakawa rituals, creating a provocative dialogue between historical European art and modern African digital spirituality.

By interweaving these disparate cultural and technological references, Attafuah invited viewers to contemplate universal themes of mortality, materialism, and the pursuit of spiritual meaning in the digital age. The work challenges the colonial gaze often applied to African practices while highlighting our enduring preoccupation with death, luxury, and the afterlife across cultures and time.

Through this contemporary memento mori, ‘OFFLINE AND LOADING’ encourages reflection on our relationship with mortality and materialism in an era of digital interconnectedness, where the boundaries between physical and virtual realities continue to blur. The work confronts the user’s experiences with their mortality and raises questions about how we engage with materialism and spirituality in an increasingly technological mass hallucination.