Cyprian Boateng

Cyprian began his first year at the RCA in ADS 3, under the tutelage of Alon Schwabe and Daniel Fernandez Pascual where he developed an interest in exploring how design can engage with deconstructing the perceived boundaries between matter, bodies, and spaces, while considering the processes that have emerged as a result of logistical and geopolitical systems entangled within them, identifying this as a new field of action for spatial practitioners. Influenced by his time spent studying at École Nationale Supérieure d 'Architecture de Paris on the Erasmus scholarship, his work spans across a range of artistic mediums, particularly that of film, animation, and painting.

Graduating with the first-class honours in 2017, Cyprian went on to spend a year working at Hawkins Brown Architects before going on to spend a further year in Tokyo working on climate-specific humanitarian centred projects at Shigeru Ban Architects. A recipient of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable trust Class of 2020 and 2021 Bursary, he currently freelances for the trust in projects working on new and exciting ways to engage a new demographic in the shaping of their own neighbourhoods.

LTE: The 4g telecommunication that provide mobile service

SOUP: (verb). To improve the power or efficiency of something

The entanglements of the technology industry far exceed the borders of countries or even devices. Digital infrastructures, extending their reach into multiple territories, an omnipresence of surveillance, extraction, and storage. It is a global, continuous operation transgressing multiple scales and bodies. Producing enclaves and urban mutations in its wake.

The project investigates the role of technological infrastructures in aiding political power, and their use to control bodies in space. Looking specifically into the existing innovations of communication and networks of conversation. It draws on the heritage of the Ghanaian spectacle and its roots in resistance.

LTE SOUP is a strategy acknowledging Ghanaian cries of woe and amplifying them as cries of joy and celebration through recognition and support of the existing resistances at tip toe lane, where the bodies are reclaiming the spectacle and their spaces alike. The proposal unfolds architecturally through festival and ruin architecture whilst people become the central infrastructure for for resistance as the interact and activate the technology around them.

Final Film can be found below and at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihw6JrmTH8Y&ab_channel=CyprianBoateng

Lost in Translation

Investigation

The screen is a portal

The Rhythm of the Spectacle

text to be added

Medium:

Film

3D Animation Conversations Film

The Rhythm of exchange — Tip Toe Lane, an arena of activity and the product of a collision between the people and the mobile industry. Here, local uncodified knowledge rules and the terrain is governed by two logistical rhythms. The rhythm of exchange, but also the rhythm of the spectacle.

Network of exploitation — In August 2019, an article released by anti-fraud firm upstream found malware pre-installed on 53,000 Tecno devices sold in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, South Africa, and Ghana. The malware is expected to be on a further 200,000 devices. The virus installs codes that find subscriptions and submit fraudulent requests on the user’s behalf and consume pre-paid airtime. The only method of topping up mobile credit in Ghana.

Radio Station

Tip Toe Lane

Restaurant

Hairdressers

The Festival

The procession

The walls are inhabited with archival stories referencing the origins of the contemporary scene as a modernisation of those very acts of liberation. Directly referencing the kente cloth and it’s many stories woven I to a single piece of fabric

The vibrant colours also reflect the imagination of the youngest participant in the intergenerational conversations who is the protagonist in this film

The scenes/vignettes document the different realities within the space but also how the networks of communication activate the spaces and the technology within them. Whilst also displaying the design decisions involved with the project and in the lead up to the portrayal of the festival. Thus portraying festival in two senses of the word, a plethora and a celebration.

Medium:

Digital mixed media, Acrylic Painting, Print

Illustration Painting Print

The procession

Medium:

Film, Animation, Digital painting

LTE SOUP FILM — The narrative of the film explores and touches on all the key themes of the project and research

Medium:

Film

Cyprian Boateng

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Social

About

Royal College of Art