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Pic by Astrée Duval

transcendence - trance ‘n dance
○ pam

Performance where I explore dance as a tool of bodily reappropriation—I fight against patriarchy and colonialism with the movements of my hips, captured by a vaginal sensor, which triggers the sound of the piece. It is accompanied by my thesis body politics, body poetics.

Created for Interactive /Media / Design Bachelor Degree at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague

Nominated for I/M/D Prize alongside ặnim@ by sWitches

Nominated (and received honorable mention) for Young Blood Award by GOGBOT Festival alongside ặnim@ by sWitches

2021

Format transmedia dance performance and installation

Media dance performance, wearable electronics, sonic composition, poetry, automated traditional drums, metal frames, organic matter (shells, stones, copal, crystals, feathers), costume, mask

Hardware EMG muscle sensor, vaginal and skin electrodes, ESP32 microcontrollers, solenoid engines, computer, speakers

Software ESP-NOW, Ableton Live, Max/MSP

Concept, creation and performance by pamela varela

Installation in collaboration with ella hebendanz, Ines DeRu, Dennis Slootweg

Electrosonic composition by Montserrat Balmori

Voice by Victoria Martínez

Poem in collaboration with Anna Arov

Technology in collaboration with Marlot Meyer, Maarten Keus, Adriaan Wormgoor

Costume in collaboration with Jill Wilkinson

Percussion by Bob Verhoeven and Lucien Nicou

Dance in collaboration with Fazle Shairmahomed

Metalwork in collaboration with Dennis Slootweg

Mask in collaboration with Davide Amato

Special thanks to I/M/D 1st year, Cami Chebez, Janine Huizenga, Pawel Pokutycki, Lindsey Houdsen, Anna Arov, and everyone who helped :)

Exhibited at

“Politics of the Machines Conference”, Berlin, DE / online, 2021 (article and presentation)

“JAM-POD”, SIGN, Groningen, NL, 2021 (installation)

“Young Blood Award”, GOGBOT Festival , Enschede, NL, 2021 (installation and performance)

“Graduation Festival”, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, NL, 2021 (installation and performance)

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transcendence - trance ’n dance explores the power of dance as a tool of bodily reappropriation and radical self-expression, and of trance as a state of heightened awareness. The performance narrates the liberation journey of the Self from the physical and psychological confinement imposed by the (body) politics of a colonialist, patriarchal, and capitalist society.

I draw inspiration from my background as a dancer, as well as from protests and trance-inductive practices and use the format of street dance, where dancers encounter and challenge each other, to create an energicospatiotemporal setting where the boundaries pushed are not against another human but against the machine.

The concept was inspired by Chicago Footwork, a street dance style where the dancing is extremely fast and the music can go up to 170 bpm, so the dancer often challenges the speaker. Who can go faster?

Dance, poetry, electronic music, and rhythmic drumming are trance-inducing.

Pics by Astrée Duval

Pics by Astrée Duval

Pics by Emma Grima

Pic by Marlot Meyer

Pic by pamela varela

Pic by Marlot Meyer

Pic by Melle de Groot

○○

An electronic-poetic piece narrates. I listen; I respond—through dance. Connected to a circle of automated drums via a vaginal muscle reader, which reacts to the movements of my hips as a protest from the oppressed genitals, the outcome is a sonic clash between the drums (primal, ancestral, rooted) and the electropoetry in the speakers (digital, intellectual, evolved).

The drums are the oldest and simplest instrument, used since ancestral times. I place them on the ground within metal frames and decorate them with crystals, stones, and flowers (earth) and shells (water). Attached to the top, they have a mechanism built with a solenoid engine, which plays the drums every time I dance, move my hips, or contract my vaginal muscles.

The electropoetry is the most advanced kind of sound (electronic sounds and the intellect). It is being played in the loudspeakers, which are joined by metal chains and decorated with feathers (air) and pieces of copal incense (fire). They are playing a poem I wrote about bodily oppression and liberation, embedded within an electronic music composition. When I listen to it, I react through dance, hence activating the drums.

transcendence - trance ‘n dance TRAILER

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During the whole piece, I battle to balance dual and binary forces— reclaiming my body as subject, to stop it from being object. In my costume, I embody the eagle and the snake from Mexican mythology as a representation of dualism.

The narrative is inspired by the Greek creation myth. After everything was Chaos (nothingness), Gaia (earth) is born, and from her, Uranus (sky). The sound starts being chaotic and ends up being harmonious; there is no winner. All dualities coexist.

The Mexican emblem, which can be found on the Mexican flag, is an eagle (yang) eating a snake (yin). The legend says that Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of the sun and war, told the Aztecs when they were migrating from Aztlán that wherever they saw that event happening, they should establish their civilization. They found this place in lake Texcoco and founded Tenochtitlán, today’s Mexico City. The fact that the eagle is eating the snake is a symbol of patriarchy.

The snake represents the yin energy because it is earth and water, and I carry it on the left side of my body. The eagle represents the yang energy because it is air and fire, and I carry it on the right side of my head (mind).

Pic by Marlot Meyer

EAGLE
Pic by pamela varela

SNAKE
Pic by Melle de Groot

Pic by pamela varela

Pic by Astrée Duval

Pic by pamela varela

Illustration by pamela varela

Pic by ella hebendanz

Illustration by Ines DeRu

Vaginal data read in Arduino IDE

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The sensor I use combines a muscle reader used for electronic DIY projects with the Periform® Intra-Vaginal Probe by Neen, which is a medical-grade device that is used for pelvic floor health (as an output to obtain muscle biofeedback or as an input to induce muscle stimulation). I transform its purpose and turn it into an expressive device for my art. By contracting my vaginal muscles or by moving my hips, the sensor is activated. I, then, can control anything running on electricity with my vagina.

I capture the data of my vaginal muscles with the vaginal probe and an ESP32 micro-controller that I am wearing. This ESP32 sends the information wirelessly to another ESP32 (using the protocol ESP-NOW) which is attached to the computer that is running the installation. The data arrives to the program Max/MSP which, subsequently, triggers a composition in Ableton Live. The composition is played in the physical drums (as voltage fluctuations sent to the solenoid engines) via Max/MSP. The result is that when I dance, the circle of drums plays live. When I do not move, there is silence.

The electropoetry is not connected to the technological set-up and is running regardless of the biofeedback. A dream for the future of this project is to, indeed, make everything be mutually-affected/affective and generative, so that my body has an actual conversation with the machine.

I also use this sensor in the projects exquisitely extreme and Ĭichti@.

Max/MSP

Arduino IDE

Ableton Live

transcendence - trance ‘n dance FULL PERFORMANCE
Shot in 360º format by TodaysArt (min. 8:45)

Excerpt of poem in electropoetry
Spray-painted with stencil on the wall, inspired by protests
Pic by Melle de Groot

transcendence - trance ‘n dance AFTERMOVIE

my great-grandmother was a land

and just like the Mexican grounds

taken she was

by a European man

trinchera de guerra

a body is a land

continuously regenerating

a body embodying time

transgenerational experiences

rooted in ancestral stories

collective trauma

transmitted into our spirits

presente in our bodies

carrying painful stories in our vessel

the grandchildren of generations of rape

capitalism-colonialism-patriarchy

hammering our Selves

is hope on the horizon?

hope should be no diamond

patriarchy at the forefront of pain,

of restraint, of constraint

cisgender men exerting domain

–don’t let them tell you that is the natural way–

and capitalism committed

to racism and sexism

a system that does not value

the looks of a body

that is just not the Vitruvian man

binary constructions rejecting “the other”

a history that does not

tell herstory, theirstory

so if imprisoned by language

then poets to break the code

myths myths myths

myths can be retold

se la robaron, she was stolen

a woman taken by a man

oh, dear great-grandmother

I light a candle on your name

Cande

your story is the fuel of my fire

and thanks to all the rebels

who changed my path

so that I won’t be

taken by a man

so here we are, protesting

the new mestizas, a breed of antagonist cultures

daughters of an encounter of ravaging essence

gaining control of the dangerous streets

so that the eleven Mexican women

who die everyday

at the hands of men

will march then

phrases, pledges

pamela varela

heartbeat rising when walking the night

do you think it’s fine

to walk with your keys between your hands?

the night, the obscure, the shadows

taken away from us

unaccompanied?

to depend or to endanger

and is home any better?

to perform the unremunerated job

of raising kids and feeding husbands

choose one: whore, mom, nun

I choose none

gender binarism professed

biological differences stressed

those with uteruses oppressed

so let us protest

united in the struggle

to destroy cis-temic violence

intersectionality striving diversity, plurality

to construct new realities and virtualities

inclusive bodies, including bodies

from politics to poetics

from activism to art

of movements that heal

and its creator creatures

the change generators:

the rebels

the dancers

the poets

the witches

the serpents

dance as a form of protest

“for the joy of a body that enjoys

and dances on the ruins of order and progress” ¹

movement connecting us

physically, spiritually, sexually

to our joy and our struggles

the rave as subversive

and the power of collective dance

breaking away from the framework of norms:

“political disobedience, sexual rebellion”²

loosening the soils, planting the seeds

for a future constellation to exist

a bright destiny where we

commune, collaborate, cooperate

for change, to change

reclaiming the witch and her rebellious ways

with a body that dances to the beats of the obscure

I let the quietened voices

living in and around me

guide my way

mi cuerpa, my body

enjoys, joys, joins

to rebel, to dance

I rebel, I dance

¹Maldita Geni Thalia
² Materia Hache

ặnim@ ○ sWitches

This project exists within the wider project ặnim@ by sWitches, an interdisciplinary, cyberfeminist, artivist constellation formed by pamela varela (MX, 1995), Ines DeRu (ID/ES, 1998), and ella hebendanz (DE, 1997). Taking the witch as a symbol for the rebellious feminist, we make our way into the patriarchal technological field to express a more diverse(ifying) view on technology and create sensorial experiences that extend and enhance human connection. We use technology in close contact with our bodies, envisioning it as a tool for contemporary magick, while simultaneously exploring the notions of power and control that arise between human and machine.

Pic by Marlot Meyer

ặnim@ TRAILER

Pic by Marlot Meyer

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ặnim@ is a sensorial, communal universe where our spells generate a ritualistic act of resistance. It is formed by 3 chapters.

son tra mi ona, Ines DeRu: Sonic gathering that embarks us into a deep listening journey where the artist invites the audience to listen and feel elemental sounds of nature, carried by her voice through the vibrations transmitted from the instruments of healing.

transcendence - trance ‘n dance, pamela varela: Performance exploring dance as a tool of bodily reappropriation, where the artist fights against the politics of a colonialist, patriarchal, and capitalist society. Connected to a circle of automated drums via a vaginal muscle reader reacting to the movements of her hips, the outcome is a sonic clash between the drums and an electronic-poetic piece.

compositions of unbroken flows, ella hebendanz: Inspired by the craft of pottery and clay’s symbolism of matter, the artist uses mechanised turning wheels to compose a swirling dreamscape that contextualises their research of bodily entanglement. Playing with the synchronicity of sound, image, and movement, as well as that of human and machine, their own narrative is woven.

compositions of unbroken flows, ella hebendanz

son tra mi ona, Ines DeRu
Mural by Marlot Meyer

sWitches collective beliefs

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