| With over 2,800,000 people, Nairobi is East Africa's cosmopolitan hub. Public service vehicles called matatus, often vans seating 12 to 25, have provided most of Nairobi's transport since colonialism. For this reason, the matatu industry is one of the most successful niches of Nairobi's dynamic informal sector. The industry's fabled art and its underlying philosophy of what I call the aesthetics of control, embody an important ideological stance in post-colonial Nairobi. This dissertation examines the often provocatively designed public transport vehicles of Nairobi, and the artists, matatu crew members, and passengers that have created and participate in the aggressive aesthetic practices that bring the vehicles to life. This study will help illuminate why the aesthetics of control was so vital to matatu art and how central matatu design was to life in Nairobi in 2004 and 2005.;The aesthetic of control has two interdependent categories. While these categories cannot be separated it is helpful to distinguish them for discursive purposes. The first category includes the principles of aesthetic action and the second, the sensory predilections manifested as tangible stylistic choices. Some of these main principles include the following: 1) colors with high contrast; 2) designs with visual and conceptual unity; and 3) images and phrases that communicate toughness, street cool, and prowess. Within these guiding concepts graphic artists manipulated visual predilections including verbal images and phrases, as well as the colors, fonts, and styles with which to render them.;Individuals involved in the matatu industry generally used association with vehicles boldly designed according to these aesthetic principles to build self- and public images as tough, savvy contenders. These principles of action and personal predilections were indispensable tools with which people realized individual potency requisite for entrepreneurial success in their highly competitive business. |
