Mudsimmer

The (hopeful) beginning of summer as a distorted May Day celebration of ancient origins around a technological Maypole brimming with digital folklores, black magic myths and doom scrolling ritual.

Work and performances from:
Philip Speakman  /  Nella Piatek  /  Frederika Dalwood

4th May 2024

Katabasing by Philip Speakman draws from Orphic myth, online folklore and Faustian theatre to tell the story of a documentary production’s investigation into a viral trend emanating from the darker corners of the internet. Continuing the themes of Alt_R’s current season Ringlorn, Katabasing produces an idea of the Internet as something akin to the forest in mediaeval folklore and gothic literature; as a place of both transformation and ensnarement, enlightenment and benightedness, where horror and wonder can stem from the same terra nullius.

Ctrl+R to Reflesh by Nella Piatek is an auto-ethnographic work, a reflective monologue spoken by a cyberwitch and addressed to an unidentified entity. She likens her own body, her ‘flesh’ with nature and technology, hoping to transgress the meaning of what flesh is - as to her, it doesn’t stop at the human body, flesh is the raw material that composes a living or functioning material. The realisation that human bodies, nature and technology share the same elements and natural cycles of decay, brings to question what flesh is.

Additional textile artworks by Frederika Dalwood were installed within the physical Ringlorn forest environment.