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.

"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 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

The importance of tactile contact between the artist and their jewellery has increased over the last decade. More and more artists now implement digital technologies into their work process. This raises questions about the notion of tactility, something that is usually associated as something tangible or given to touch. The authors show that there is a different sensorial mode of engagement with jewellery presented on the screen: during the 3D modelling process or 3D printing. This article aims to investigate the intangible qualities of tactility in the field of digital crafts, while focusing on the material, technical, performative, and psychological aspects. The outcomes include a set of tactile qualities evoked by screen-oriented labour and machinery production: resolution sensitivity, thin-skinned data, psycho-performative realism; and fingerprints, incompleteness and glitch.