The narrative of the piece can be divided into two parts: the ritual (entering a trance state, discovering the portal to XIDALIA) and the arrival (arriving in and exploring XIDALIA, experiencing particle reconfiguration). I felt it was necessary to begin by bringing people into a state where they would be more open to the journey, so I created a ritual soundtrack for the first part which consists mainly of beating sine waves, inspired by singing bowls, and layered vocals, pre-recorded and live. The visuals for the ritual consist mainly of shader graphics and have a hypnotic, psychedelic quality to them, which supports the audio. This part of the performance continues a practice I have been developing that explores trance and ritual by using technology as a magical tool. I’m interested in continuing, updating and queering the lineage of visionary art, psychedelic aesthetics and trance sounds.

The audio and visuals shift to filmed footage and electronic music that meanders through moods and genres as we enter XIDALIA (around 5 mins into the performance). The narrative, embodied through the visuals and music, has a dual nature. On one hand, I show a glimpse of the kind of society I hope to inhabit. A return to the earth, living in harmony with nature’s processes, with elements of technology. This can be seen in the first few shots, where the music is dreamy and I am taught about the herbs available to me locally.

This part was inspired by sci-fi literature (Piercy, 1976; Slonczewski, 2016), as well as Donna Haraway’s concept of “sympoeisis”, or making-with, as explored in “Staying with the Trouble” (Haraway, 2016). In the last chapter, Haraway describes a world where all the theory explored is put into practice – where the human population decreases, where children are raised by multiple parents, where our DNA is mixed with that of other species. This inspired me to focus on creating the world I want to live in, rather than making a piece that criticises our current system of living.

On the other hand, I offer a different perspective. Through working on the project, I realised it was important to also remain present in the world we’re living in now – “to stay with the trouble”, to face the fact that whether or not there will be a future post-apocalypse, we are all going to die. Thinking about this not in a defeatist way, but to bring about a sense of urgency, a call to make the most of our experience as humans before it’s too late.

Transformation is inevitable – but what will come from the materials that compose us, our particles, our consciousness? Will there be new forms of life, like a second oceanic evolution (as in, how everything evolved from oceanic microorganisms), or could there be something other, something we cannot imagine at all? Dreaming about the possibilities brought about a sense of hope, almost excitement, about what could happen to us in the future, bringing about a peace with death.

Particle reconfiguration as a hopeful way to make peace with death is expressed through processing videos with code, where the manipulation of pixels is a metaphor for what will happen to our particles. I experiment with glitch, degradation, transformation, and the merging of videos, to turn my body into something other. Glitches were interesting in particular as despite them initially being accidental, code working in a way I didn’t intend, I felt they supported the particle reconfiguration narrative, representing processes such as genetic mutation or perhaps glitches in evolution. This is (partially) why artists collaborate with machines, after all – to produce unexpected results.  Through experimenting with footage this way, I began to reimagine XIDALIA as a body, which is also a site of sorts. I became XIDALIA through working on it– something in touch with the past, present, nature, technology, that breaks binaries, that translates and communicates, that carries what is important into the future.

To read more about this piece, check out this blogpost.