Virtual Reality

Share your artifact or a link to your artifact in the space below.

Include a description of the artifact and include research on the background of the artifact. For example, information about the artist involved.

*** Make sure to cite your sources by including a list of any outsides sources of information you are using to answer this question. Remember, research is always a good thing as it shows effort.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/world/africa/cellphones-catapult-rural-africa-to-21st-century.html

The selected artifact is a pop culture artifact which creates a negative bias and promoting the stereotype about one group of people in the society. The selected artifact is known as “Cellphones Catapult Rural Africa to 21st Century” which was produced by Sharon Lafraniere. The artifact describes a 36 year old woman known as Bekowe Skhakhane who do simple tasks in the hard way. She is considered to have made Africa as being the fastest growing cellphone market due to the increase in the number of mobile subscribers. There are images used in this article that shows that Africa is not able to develop and this makes them to be considered as technically lacking progress. The use of cell phone in rural African is received with shock since the perception of the writer is that African is naturally behind in terms of technology (Lafraniere, 2005).

What does this artifact mean to you? Please explain.

To explore this, consider these additional questions:

How has it inspired or moved you? Has this artifact helped make your life or the life of others better? How does it connect to your life or to the educational journey you are starting along with your classmates?

Based on this article, there is still belief that Africa is still lagging behind in terms of technology. Majority of people from the developed nations especially from the Western world consider Africa lacking progress in terms of technology and are lacking the current technological advancement. This perception is not true since the writer of the artifact is even surprised to learn that Bekowe Skhakhane, a 36 year old woman from the rural area is able to use a cellphone. It is therefore clear that Africans from the rural areas are learning the hard way and inspires many to give it a trial rather than basing their ability based on the perception of other people (Mark, 2018).

Many people have artifacts displayed in their home; for example, a certain painting on their wall. In a way, we’ll be creating a virtual gallery of artifacts by sharing our choices as a class in the Class DocSharing area.

How does your artifact fit into our class gallery? How do you think your artifact communicates your life perspective to the class? How do you think others will interpret your choice of artifact?

This artifact is important to the class since it shows how perception of other people can lead to unfair treatment and negative bias on others. It teaches class that perception should not be used as a means of developing negative attitude or stereotyping against others and it is therefore important to understand the challenges faced by others to develop their abilities. Negative perception is against the development and motivation of others towards being creative and innovative and this has to be stopped. The class will interpret this artifact as a promotion against biases based on the negative perceptions (Mark, 2018).

Discuss in your own words, how technology has changed human art making and human art sharing. How do you, or could you, use technology in making your own art?

Human art working has been changed through adoption of the technology. Due to technology, it is possible to create photography, the video arts, and the new genre. It has also become possible to create a website as art pieces or the use of social media. In my art work, I can use technology to make watercolor and the chalk backgrounds in my piece of artwork. I can also use the technology to animate my artwork to draw more attention from the audience (Mark, 2018).

References

Lafraniere, S. (2005, August 25). Cellphones Catapult Rural Africa to 21st Century. Retrieved January 17, 2020, from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/world/africa/cellphones-catapult-rural-africa-to-21st-century.html

Mark, M. P. (2018). Metaphors of Democratization. In Revisiting Metaphors in International Relations Theory . Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.