Could you tell me something about yourself?
My name is Noel Apitta; I am a Ugandan creative technologist and audio-visual artist. I am based in Kampala. Over the last four, five years, I have been creating digital artwork under the name Scarletmotiff mostly because I like to make it about the artwork, and not about me as a person.
And when were you born, where?
I was born in Kampala in 1993 [although Noel warned Quick Talk not to ask about his personal life, one thing is clear; he must be a Christmas baby…]
Where did you start your education journey?
I went to King’s College Budo [for his entire secondary education] and Makerere University [to study electrical engineering].
Did your passion for art start at Budo?
Not necessarily. My artwork is something I have grown into…it has taken me a while to think about my work as an art. As I grow into that space, I kind of explore it. Budo was a useful starting ground.
A lot of my work is built around orchestrations of music…Music is not the main thing I do, but it is part of it and that started in Budo; I was in the school band…
When I look at your artwork, the first thing that comes to mind is a live concert and the digital graphics playing on a back screen. Am I right to assume this is what your art is about?
That used to be my path to this kind of work. It began around music. A lot of the work I did was just to support musical acts in bringing storytelling to their shows and events. I have worked with concerts and stage presentation; to create opportunities for the artistes singing on stage to tell their stories and create these experiences and narrative journeys.
I have worked with Mo Roots, The Collective UG… Through those kinds of spaces, I got interested in treating these musicians like actual artistic collaborators. What I am doing now is a bit different. I am directing my efforts towards creating installations; large or small-scale artistic introversions. Situations where people can interact with the visuals as an art in and of itself.
Why Scarletmotiff?
Every artist must have his mysteries, and that is mine. Suffice it to say, though, when I was younger, I used to read a lot of books; I got into creating words and things…at the surface of it now it is just a name I use to identify myself.
What motivated you to do digital graphics?
Everyone is looking for ways to express themselves. For me, the most successful way that gave me joy was to create digitally. I was lucky to have access to a smartphone, a computer… it is just the medium that most agreed with the way I wanted to create. I don’t draw, I don’t necessarily paint. What agreed with my interests was using digital tools to create art.
If someone argued that art is using a pen, pencil, paintbrush…so, in your case the computer is doing the art, not you. What would you tell them?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don’t take it as an affront. Art is art. The person who has to perceive it first as something of value is myself and I mostly create to express something within me. My first audience is myself and if I think it is art…
But on a more technical sense, the methodology I use to create treats the computer not so much as an artistic collaborator, but as a tool. The expression of my art is through generative art, which is a collaboration between an artist and an autonomous system. I don’t work with artificial intelligence, though. To some degree, [my art] is this thing that would not be possible without a computer, but to say the computer is the artist in my case would be like saying a paintbrush is the artist [for a painter].
When was your big break?
I think it has been a constant improvement, constant effort… I began the current series of artwork in July 2020. I started creating daily audio-visual works and put them online. It is a series called generative dreams. That was a turning point.
Prior to that, I had been working with traditional – still digital – but traditional air working streams like filmmaking and editing. But this time when I started working with computing, code and stuff like that, was in 2020 and my work has grown a following.
This year has been a very big year for me. I got opportunities to meet a huge number of artists, to interact with people in similar fields, which are rare in Uganda. I had a short exhibition at AfriArt Gallery supported by New Castle University and a curatorial team in Jinja called The Creative Tribe. We put on this very short exhibition and it was a good thing to see that come to life.
Tell me about the Noor Riyadh Festival where you just represented Uganda
Essentially, Noor Riyadh is an initiative of Riyadh Art. It is an initiative of the Saudi government to turn Riyadh into an open-air gallery of artworks. They want to bring their population into contact with different kinds of art from all over the world.
Noor Riyadh is basically a festival of lights; artworks that in some way or other involve light. They may be more traditional electrical systems, mirrors… Riyadh is a really big city; so, they got about 80 individual artists and they were putting them at different points in the city. My artwork was a visual installation displayed on a LED structure about 30m high, 4m wide.
How was your art received?
It was a three-week festival from November 3 to November 19. I had a very good experience with my small interaction with Saudi culture. It opened my worldview and showed me the Arabian peninsula from a different view.
The people were very kind, very welcoming; I didn’t have any single problem. People were inviting me to go eat with them and they didn’t know who I was… Saudi Arabia [compared to Dubai] was a different expression of the region. It was a great place to visit and be in.
Was this your first international showcase?
It is the first major showing of my work on such a scale. But I have had my work exhibited before in New York, Tokyo, Austin-Texas, and I got to be part of the 2022 New Dimensions Lab hosted by Electric South in Cape Town, just before my exhibition in Kampala.
You are representing! What are your plans after Noor Riyadh?
Honestly for now, it is just to rest. This was a massive undertaking; I have been preparing for almost a year. It takes a bit of work. I was the main creative director of the exhibited work, but I did work with a stage/set designer from Uganda, Victor Hatega and it being an audio-visual installation, I worked with Abaasa Rwemereza on the musical arrangements and final production.
Anything else, Noel?
I have been very lucky – the schools I have gone to, where I am from in life…I studied electrical engineering in Makerere, but I haven’t practiced it in a way most people would find aligned with their thoughts of an electrical engineer, but [my art] heavily involves software and code and things like that. I was lucky to have the support from my family, having some time in the pandemic, which gave me a lot of time to reflect…
[Art] isn’t the easiest choice if you could have been an engineer, and I am speaking from a position of privilege. But the more people see things like this; to be more creative with what they have studied…In Uganda, there are people with diverse interests and I hope there are more opportunities for people to make a living off this kind of thing. Mine has been a marriage of [my passion and the electrical engineering degree].
Technology/digital is just another tool that has been added to [what we already have] – it is not going to [be the replacement].
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