Dr Fazal Ali

Ours is a civil­i­sa­tion of col­li­sions. The mod­ern world as we know it, was cre­at­ed from these im­pair­ments. As doubts about Colum­bus’s claims of hav­ing been close to Japan crept in, dis­agree­ments be­tween Castile and Por­tu­gal were re­solved in the At­lantic. What fol­lowed was a cortege of diplo­mat­ic stand­offs, treaties and wars.

Noth­ing stood in the way of the Iber­ian pi­o­neers from peremp­to­ri­ly claim­ing mo­nop­oly rights over the dis­cov­ery of the whole plan­et as a pri­va­tised po­lit­i­cal space ex­cept Fran­cis I, King of France, who fa­mous­ly asked to see the clause in “Adam’s will” that cut France out of the world.

In the end, what re­mained was a civil­i­sa­tion free from the fixed, dead past of stone rem­nants of dead em­pires. This par­adis­al per­spec­tive freed us of old-world bur­dens and en­abled us to name things afresh. At the Stu­dio Mu­se­um in Harlem in 1971, LeRoy Clarke pre­sent­ed “Frag­ments of a Spir­i­tu­al,” a col­lec­tion of paint­ings, po­ems, and hun­dreds of ink draw­ings on pa­per.

Con­sid­er­ing the scale of Africa and Asia and be­ing a wit­ness to a mod­est minaret in Madras Set­tle­ment and an onion-domed Shiv Mandir moored in the Sea, it dawns up­on our souls that we must be abridge­ments of what we were, once up­on a time.

And in des­per­ate ac­cep­tance of be­ing a bit more than a diminu­tive dis­tor­tion, we dance an epic po­em in si­lence in the still­ness of a cane field, and drum bam­boo reeds in a J’ou­vert pro­ces­sion to meet the ris­ing sun. So to­day we know we are free be­cause we are all still run­ning.

In the com­ing wave, gen­er­a­tive de­sign­ers, da­ta artists, cre­ative in­for­mat­ics spe­cial­ists, and cre­ative tech­nol­o­gists will use da­ta and dig­i­tal to en­gage in Da­ta-Dri­ven In­no­va­tion (DDI) in the Trinidad Car­ni­val. The com­ing wave of dig­i­tal cre­ative en­tre­pre­neurs will cre­ate guilds of Dig­i­tal Cre­ative In­dus­tries for screen economies.

These new Dig­i­tal Cre­ative In­dus­tries, which find a foothold in the mas­quer­ade tra­di­tions of the Trinidad Car­ni­val and the fes­ti­val arts of Hosay and Ram­leela, will be piv­otal to fu­ture eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in the Age of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI).

The fu­ture of Trinidad’s Car­ni­val and fes­ti­val in­dus­tries is nest­ed in­side DDI, cre­ative AI, dig­i­tal de­sign, and im­mer­sive tech­nolo­gies. The Car­ni­val and fes­ti­val in­dus­tries are cel­e­bra­tions of the arts. They en­com­pass vi­su­al arts, per­form­ing arts, lit­er­ary arts, and the de­sign arts.

They are a cru­cible for Min­shal­lesque ki­net­ic sculp­tures, dra­ma and the­atre, dance, mu­si­cal com­po­si­tion, draw­ing and paint­ing, stage light­ing, sound tech­nol­o­gy, song­writ­ing, and cos­tume de­sign. In the Age of AI, Car­ni­val Arts afi­ciona­dos, mas­quer­ade com­pa­nies, steel mem­brane or­ches­tras, “mas” busi­ness­es, and dig­i­tal cre­ative en­tre­pre­neurs in the fes­ti­val in­dus­try will con­fi­dent­ly in­no­vate by lever­ag­ing cre­ative in­for­mat­ics to de­vel­op dig­i­tal prod­ucts.

We are on the cusp of a new age of Car­ni­val and fes­ti­val ex­pe­ri­ences that are well po­si­tioned for DDI. DDI in the Car­ni­val and fes­ti­val in­dus­tries will blend the arts, com­merce, da­ta, and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to trans­form prod­uct de­vel­op­ment by in­ter­weav­ing the Ex­pe­ri­ence and Screen Economies.

The tra­di­tion­al fo­cus of a tourism prod­uct ground­ed in sun, sea and sand will give way to the eco­nom­ic pro­pos­al that the da­ta gen­er­at­ed by cre­ative work may be more valu­able than the orig­i­nal busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty.

Cre­ative in­for­ma­tion or­gan­isms will un­mask the “new” val­ue in the da­ta that their works in ki­net­ic sculp­ture, sound tech­nol­o­gy, video, pho­tog­ra­phy, dance, paint, cos­tume, cloth­ing, lit­er­a­ture, tex­tiles and fash­ion cre­ate. The Car­ni­vals of the Caribbean in par­tic­u­lar are an un­touched oa­sis of cre­ativ­i­ty await­ing the com­ing wave of DDI.

This shifts the tourism brand iden­ti­ty away from sun, sea, and sand to mem­o­ry as the dis­tinct eco­nom­ic of­fer­ing. In the com­ing wave, goods be­come brand sto­ries, and dig­i­tal and DDI ser­vices be­come the stage. Dig­i­tal Cre­ative In­dus­tries in the Car­ni­val Arts can com­bine cre­ativ­i­ty, tech­nol­o­gy, vir­tu­al pro­duc­tion, an­i­ma­tion, im­mer­sive tech­nolo­gies, cre­ative AI, dig­i­tal de­sign, vi­su­al ef­fects, and DDI to pro­duce con­tent, ex­pe­ri­ences, and prod­ucts.

DDI for the Car­ni­vals of the Caribbean bring to­geth­er artis­tic tal­ent and tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion, mak­ing them one of the Caribbean’s most dy­nam­ic and rapid­ly evolv­ing eco­nom­ic sec­tors.

Sug­ar Mas of St Kitts and Nevis, which blends Christ­mas fes­tiv­i­ties with tra­di­tion­al mas­quer­ade; Bac­cha­nal Ja­maica, which is a fu­sion of so­ca, reg­gae, and con­science vibes; Crop Over, which cul­mi­nates in Grand Kadoo­ment; Spice­mas of Grena­da, and the Junkanoo held dur­ing the Christ­mas hol­i­day sea­son in Ja­maica that com­bines Akan, Yoru­ba, and Ig­bo tra­di­tions with British hol­i­day cus­toms are an abun­dant source of da­ta for the Dig­i­tal Cre­ative In­dus­tries.

This is a com­plete­ly new class of Cre­ative In­dus­tries that are “Glob­al” in scope and out­look. This re­quires tal­ent in­cu­ba­tors where uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents spend the Ju­ly-Au­gust mas­ter­ing cod­ing; ro­bot­ics; mould­ing; cast­ing; 3D print­ing; pro­to­typ­ing and laser cut­ting; ac­tive lis­ten­ing; ag­ile think­ing; or­gan­i­sa­tion­al aware­ness; and syn­the­sis­ing mes­sages.

Dr Fazal Ali com­plet­ed his Mas­ters in Phi­los­o­phy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. He was a Com­mon­wealth Schol­ar who at­tend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge, Hugh­es Hall; the Provost of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go; the act­ing Pres­i­dent of UTT; and the Chair­man of the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. He is the Pres­i­dent of NI­HERST and an ex­ter­nal ser­vices con­sul­tant with the IDB. He can be reached at faza­lal­itsc@gmail.com