Pamela Varela
Keywords: Dance, Feminism
Internship: Studio Marco Donnarumma
pamelavarela@protonmail.com, pavamere.la, instagram.com/pavamere.la, instagram.com/___ssswitchesss___
I am a tECkhnO feminist artivist, dancer, performer, researcher, writer, raver, and technician of Latin American origin who creates interactive works that address the oppression of the body-mind-spirit. Using an interdisciplinary/intermedia approach, diverse elements converge in my work: from the body to its relation with surroundings, matter, and entities, to poetic forms of movement, language, sexuality, and spirituality—all enhanced within the chamaleonic capabilities of technology, who is both medium and subject of criticism.
tECkhnO references techno, without diminishing eco. The (mis)spelling introduces the idea of political activism, non-conformism, DISORDER. The k is inspired by the Spanish squatting movement OKUPA, as well as by MAGICK referring to the occult, differentiating itself from performance magic.
TRANSCENDENCE • TRANCE ’N DANCE
Graduation Project
transcendence • trance ’n dance is a generative, performative piece, which explores the power of dance as a tool of bodily reappropriation and radical self-expression, focusing on the liberation journey of the Self from the physical and psychological confinement imposed by the politics of a colonialist, patriarchal, and capitalist society.
A narrational electronic-poetic piece plays in space. I listen; I respond—through dance. Since I am remotely connected to a set of automated drums via a vaginal muscle reader, which reacts to the movements of my hips, the outcome is a sonic clash between the drums (primal, ancestral) and the electropoetry (digital, intellectual). I battle to balance the forces, reclaiming my body as subject to stop it from being object, transcending from oppression to liberation.
This project is part of the sWitches trilogy, a cyberfeminist tECkhnO magick collective formed by Ines DeRu, pamela varela, and Ella Hebendanz.
Collaborators:
Technology: Marlot Meyer, Adriaan Wormgoor, Maarten Keus
Electropoetry: Montserrat Balmori, Victoria Martínez, Anna Arov
Percussion: Bob Verhoeven, Lucien Nicou
Thesis: Sofía Irene, Taide Martínez, Anna Arov
Metalwork: Dennis Slootweg
Dance: Fazle Shairmahomed
Costume: Jill Wilkinson, Ines DeRu
Mask: Davide Amato
BODY POLITICS, BODY POETICS
Thesis
This thesis acts as an explanatory device for my graduation project.
Excerpt from the introduction:
"In an attempt to understand my past, to speak my present, and to shape my future, I write these words. And in an attempt to connect and commune, I pass them on. I believe in collective and ancestral trauma. I know my body carries information from past lives, from those before me and their struggles. I have felt my body block in ways that have no connection with my thoughts (mind) or my true desires (spirit). Especially sexually, there is something that does not feel quite right.
I am the granddaughter of generations of rape; now I know my body knows.
This thesis these words and this piece this work are the commencement of a lifework, a journey of discovery of how a very damaged past attempts to create a very pleasurable future. We all embody time; we are time’s messengers. We are continuously part of the regenerative cycle of matter and nonmatter that connects us to one another. Glancing at a destiny that seems grim—from climate change to pandemics to white supremacy—it is hard to envision hope. But I believe feminism has the capacity to forge that path. "
Chapters:
politics
corporikaˣ /// on the body, marginalization, and patriarchy
latinikaˣ /// on Latin American feminisms and the streets
electrikaˣ /// on gender, technology, and the cyberspace
transnaturikaˣ /// on “nature” and “the family”
poetics
rebelikaˣ /// on reappropriating
dancistikaˣ /// on dance as pleasure
poetikaˣ /// on language as change
esoterikaˣ /// on esotericism as activism