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○ sWitches
(Cyber)performance where we dance to liberate and heal—our movements are translated through a vaginal sensor, which affects lights and visuals within the installation. We celebrate the sun and activate our fire.
Created with the support of het Stimuleringsfonds Creative Industrie
2023
Format transmedia dance performance, cyber-performance and installation
Software Arduino IDE + ESP-NOW, Arduino IoT Cloud, TouchDesigner, VPN Hamachi, OBS + vdo.ninja, Twitch
Media dance performance, music, wearable electronics (EMG muscle reader, vaginal and skin electrodes, Arduino UNO and ESP32, Electrical Muscle Stimulation device), textiles, metal structure, mirrors, video projection, light design
Concept, creation, technology, and performance by sWitches (pamela varela, Ines DeRu, ella hebendanz)
Concept, technology, and performance with Marlot Meyer
Dance, performance, and dramaturgy with Fazle Shairmahomed
Costume design with persophino
Technology with Lucien Nicou
Music “Vesnianka”by mala herba (zosia holubowska)
Visuals by ella hebendanz and Adam Centko
Special thanks to georgina pantazopoulou, Tim Schütze, Maarten Keus, Lars Dorren, Morgan Catalina, Ine Gevers and the CA team :)
Exhibited at
“COME ALIVE” Muntgebouw, Utrecht, NL, 2022 (performance, cyberperformance, installation)
Mesh Festival Conference, Basel, CH, 2024 (presentation)
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I also use this sensor in the projects exquisitely extreme and transcendence - trance ‘n dance.
Pics by Gert Jan Van Rooij
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The longest day of the year has been celebrated throughout history, often by dancing and singing around bonfires, which symbolize the sun, to channel its energy and ensure a supply of light for all life. Interestingly enough for our research, there have been certain traditions in Europe where a figurine of a witch is burned alongside the bonfire, to “protect” the community against evil spirits and “witches”, a consequence of the medieval witch hunts.
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The term net-ktar is inspired by the words “connect”, which is the act of bringing together,
“nectar”, which is a sugary fluid secreted by plants and, in Greco-Roman mythology, the drink of the gods, and by “network”, which is a system of interconnected members. The k indicates disruption, inspired by the Spanish squatting scene OKUPA and by magick, differentiating itself from performance magic.
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the cyber-performance, we added a VPN connection that allowed us to affect the same
technologies from the distance. This is the main system we used for net-ktar. During our
research, we found another interesting method to use telepresence and affect our creations from a distance with the use of the Arduino IoT Cloud, an online platform where it is possible to connect Arduino-supported devices through the web.
In collaboration with Marlot Meyer, we created a system where we would electric-muscle stimulate her through the movements captured by our vaginal muscle reader and sent to her. Subsequently, the shocks produced on her body would make her move, therefore, activating an accelerometer placed on her core, which would then move the mirrors in the room and reflect our beams of light around the space without us being there, replacing our physical presence.
This chain of feedback interactions symbolizes for us the network of sXsterhood we dream of. By means of cyberfeminist actions, we infiltrate a space that was born from war and patriarchy: the Internet. The four of us, women or FLINTA* people working with technology, see it urgent to create new ways to interact with and through the Internet, ways where we are more present, less isolated, and more bodily connected.