The Currency - Sensing 2 Ladipo

In collaboration with Elom 20ce & Musquiqui Chihying
16 min 12 sec, 2025,
4K video, 16:9 aspect ratio, Stereo Sound, no dialog

Synopsis

In the middle of the Nigerian metropolis of Lagos is Ladipo, West Africa's largest market for used car spare parts, most of which are imported from Europe and East Asia or obtained locally from discarded cars.
A figure wearing a traditional Egungun masquerade makes his way through the crowded, narrow streets of the market and uses various microphones to explore the sounds of the market.
The Egungun of the Yoruba people are intermediaries between the living and the ancestors. They can hear the sounds of the invisible world and these for the people in the visible world.
In “The Currency - Sensing 2 Ladipo”, the performance of this spiritual practice is interwoven with the questioning of the technological, economic, ecological and social entanglements of the global automotive industry.

tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs - Description

tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs is a trilogy (Sensing 1 Agbogbloshie, Sensing 2 Ladipo, Sensing 3 Kailend) and part of of the long-term artistic research project THE CURRENCY by Elom 20ce (Togo), Musquiqui Chihying (Taiwan) and Gregor Kasper (Germany).

Through a transcontinental, multidisciplinary, collective practice, THE CURRENCY explores the possibilities of currencies to question capitalist logics, exploitation as well as power structures in order to re-explore the relationships between humans and their interactions with the non-human world. Global interconnections of capital flows, technological developments, and spiritual and collective resistant practices between Africa, Asia, and Europe are explored.

tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs is a flowing, polyphonic journey from three stops on the Gulf of Guinea: Agbogbloshie - the world's largest raw recycling site for electronic waste in Accra/Ghana; Ladipo - a dense market for used car spare parts in Lagos/Nigeria and Kailend - an idyllic organic farm and alternative grassroots school at the foot of Togo's highest mountain Agou.
In these special places, tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs explores the connections between different technological and spiritual spheres and questions the values of life beyond the economic logic of global capitalism. It follows different cycles of life and death, permanent processes of recycling and rebirth, and explores different frequencies, rhythms and voices from the visible and invisible world.

tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs is an invented term written in phonetic transcription that connects the two fields of technology and magic in a multi-layered way. It creates a framework, a working method and an interdisciplinary space that explores the connections between technicity and cosmology.
tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs sees itself as a polyphonic orchestra consisting of a sea of harmonies and dissonances, absorbing different frequencies, vibrations, sounds and rhythms to create a symphonic assemblage.

Installation View Fallenstadt: the Rise and Fall of Cities, Jut Art Museum, Taipei, 2026

Installation View The Currency Lab - Law & Order, geh8 @38th Filmfest Dresden, 2026

EXHIBITIONS
The Currency Lab - Law & Order, geh8 + 38th Filmfest Dresden, Dresden, Germany, 2026
Fallenstadt: the Rise and Fall of Cities, Jut Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2026
The Currency Lab - tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs @ Parallax – 6th Kochi-Muziris Biennale Collateral Program, Forplay Society, Kochi, India, 2026
The Currency Lab - tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs =, C.Rockefeller Center for the Contemporary Arts, Dresden, Germany, 2025
The Currency Lab - tɛknoʊmædʒɪkɛs, Galerie für Gegenwartskunst – E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany, 2025

SCREENINGS
The Currency Lab - Zurich, Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland, 2025

FESTIVALS
23st Vienna Shorts, Vienna, Austria, 2026
38th Filmfest Dresden, Germany, 2026

CREDITS
Directed by Elom 20ce & Musquiqui Chihying & Gregor Kasper
Written by Elom 20ce & Musquiqui Chihying & Gregor Kasper
Cast Elom 20ce
Producer Gregor Kasper
Cinematography Musquiqui Chihying, Gregor Kasper
Image Editing Musquiqui Chihying
Colorgrading Sergi Sánchez Rodriguez
Sound Design, Editing, Sum-Sum Shen, Ilya Selikhov
Sound Mixing Ilya Selikhov
Music Elom 20ce
Musicians Elom 20ce, David Agbolo, Koffi Enam Assimadi, Koudjo Avouvi, Dodji Efoui, Richard Henoc Mawunyo Kossi, Gabebo Olufade, Denis Tagbo
Recorded at Colibri Studio by Rodrigue Bellow
Costum Asrafobawu
Production xizhuang
Co-Production Asrafo Records, RLIS - Research Lab of Image and Sound
Commissioned by Galerie für Gegenwartskunst - E-Werk Freiburg
With the kind support of ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)