The Black Triangle—Commoning Borderland Coal Ecologies
(2024)
author(s): Caroline Ektander, Carlina Rossee, Jasmina Al-Qaisi, Alexandra Toland
published in: HUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
Turów is an active open-pit brown coal mine located in the ‘Black Triangle’—a once sensationally polluted industrial region in Central Europe roughly contiguous with the brown-coal belt of Southern Poland, former East Germany and the Czech Republic. The mine, which fell into Polish jurisdiction after the fall of the Soviet Union, epitomises a transnational environmental conflict. Despite the encroaching effects of the Turów mine on its neighbouring European states and its inhabitants, the Polish government refuses to stop coal extraction. The dispute has generated a lot of media and activist attention in past years, but also raises eminent questions about how to make sense of the complexities and contradictions entangled with various regimes of energy. As the human faculties are poorly trained to register and to think meaningfully about the timescales of extraction and its distributed effects, this contribution comes as an invitation to experience energy entanglements otherwise. Challenging the flatness of the common dispute as portrayed in the media, we focus attention on the undercurrents flowing beneath the logics of public discourses about ‘clean’ and ‘green’ transitions and open pathways to sense metabolic flows of energy that permeate and shapeshift in environmental media—over time and space—and ultimately become us. To help us on the way, we ferment vegetables and drink nettle tea sourced from the mining region as a collective, metabolic practice. We add salt to slow down the passing of time. We conserve, observe and finally ingest to highlight the porosity and intimacy of geo-social relations and viscerally process their toxic commonalities.
Guilty Pleasures: Immersive Art for the Oral Cavity
(2024)
author(s): Luke Franzke, Johannes Lucian Reck
published in: HUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
This paper examines emerging theories of perception and their relation to metabolic processes and presents the interactive installation Guilty Pleasures, informed by these theoretical principles. The metabolic nature of perception is particularly apparent in the experiences relating to the oral cavity, and this work explores this through an intra-oral electronic interface, combined with other modalities for enacting illusory sensations of eating, together with the exploration of the phenomenology of craving and the pica condition.
“THE LAND OF BEES” -the paradoxicality of ABSENCE and the execution of VACATION-
(2024)
author(s): Urška Medved
published in: Research Catalogue
The Land of Bees is the result of two and a half years of in-depth research exploring themes of vacation, rest, burnout, absence, work, and paradox. This project was developed as part of Urška Medved's Master's studies in the Contemporary Performative Arts program at HSM, University of Gothenburg.
Presented as an interactive document, The Land of Bees invites readers to engage with the research in a manner that reflects the very process through which the work was created.
How to Get Rid of Homophobia and Sexism in Your Country
(2024)
author(s): Darja Popolitova
published in: Research Catalogue
How to Get Rid of Homophobia and Sexism in Your Country is a performative video piece featuring the Drag Face Filter, created for the exhibition Magical Hotspot at Vent Space Gallery in 2020. The work explores pseudomagic through digital augmentation, performative rituals, and speculative identity transformations. In the video, the jewellery witch Seraphita applies a custom augmented reality (AR) face filter to official portraits of conservative politicians, digitally queering their faces with exaggerated drag features such as bold makeup and extravagant eyebrows. This act symbolises a ritual of resistance, challenging societal norms and confronting political authority through speculative digital adornment.
The piece employs Haptic Visuality, blending tactile digital manipulation with performative gestures. The act of scrolling and selecting filters with long, manicured fingernails becomes an embodied ritual, making the interface physically felt through close-up shots and dynamic interactions with the cracked phone screen. This multisensory approach transforms the Drag Face Filter into a charged pseudomagical artefact, blurring the boundaries between political critique, performance art, and speculative jewellery.
Idea and performance: Darja Popolitova
Video effects: Ando Naulainen
Sound: Andres Nõlvak
© Darja Popolitova
How to Get Rid of Loneliness
(2024)
author(s): Jewellery witch Seraphita
published in: Research Catalogue
"How to Get Rid of Loneliness" refers to a video artwork by Darja Popolitova featured in the Magical Hotspot exhibition at Vent Space Gallery in 2020. In the video, the jewellery witch Seraphita performs a ritual using the Seastone Necklace, a natural stone with a hole worn as a pendant. She taps its surface with her long nails, whispering affirmations as if typing messages on a phone screen. The necklace becomes a ritualistic tool for dispelling loneliness, symbolising a bridge between isolation and connection.
How to Integrate Yourself into Society
(2024)
author(s): Jewellery witch Seraphita
published in: Research Catalogue
"How to Integrate Yourself into Society" is a performative video piece featuring the Ethnic Brooch, created for the exhibition Magical Hotspot at Vent Space Gallery in 2020. The work explores pseudomagic through symbolic ritual and material interaction. In the video, the character Seraphita pricks her finger with the brooch’s needle, allowing blood to drip onto a cracked phone screen. This act symbolises a ritualistic attempt at integration, merging personal identity with digital and societal representations.
The piece employs haptic-visuality, emphasising the tactile experience of the brooch’s needle piercing the skin, creating a visceral connection for the viewer. Close-up shots and textural details enhance the sensory impact, making the act of penetration both symbolically and physically felt. This multisensory approach intensifies the emotional resonance of the ritual, transforming the brooch into a charged object within a speculative, magical context.
