Digital Art in Nigeria (1990 – 1999)

This study investigates the early development of digital art in Africa, specifically focusing on how Nigerian artists of the 1990s harnessed digital tools as a medium of postcolonial resistance. Digital art, commonly perceived as a Western practice rooted in the Anglo-American technological advancements of the 1960s, has seldom been associated with African contexts. My research challenges this prevailing narrative by examining the works of multimedia artists such as Smart-Cole, Bamgboye, and Tuggar, whose creative methodologies blend analog and digital forms to critique postcolonial conditions. Through an art-historical and media studies lenses, I analyze the cultural and technological layers embedded in their work.