Jatun Risba
Koprodukcija/Co-production: STEAM Atelier (ITA)
Mpasturavacche.The milksuckling snake
“Mpasturavacche. The milk-suckling snake” is a one-to-one art and science performance that lets people explore the sensory abilities of snakes through wearable technologies. By shedding light on the instincts and impulses of the lizard
brain in the human animal, it makes sense of and alleviates our current estrangement from the animal world.
For the duration of the performance, the artist and the spectator/co-performer are linked by an “umbilical cord”, which
acts as a communication channel between the two. The visitor receives a headset for virtual reality with thermal vision, an Arduino board, and a highly sensitive voice sensor mounted close to the mouth. The device is connected to the
artist, where a wearable technology system, made of micro motors mounted on a piece of isothermal textile, pulses in time with the visitor’s breath. The louder the sounds made by the co-performer, the stronger the vibration of the
“serpent” and the dialogue between the two.
The performance explores the ancestral communication systems of reptiles (snakes) and their impact on human perception and behaviour. The intimate setting of the performance awakens and
challenges the sensory nature of the communication and signification in the human [and more-than-human] animal.
(Mpasturavacche is the dialectal name in southern Italy of the common four-lined snake, which is said to suckle cow’s
milk while wrapped around a cow’s legs.)
Jatun Risba is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the space beyond human paradigms. By approaching science and technology in terms of ritual mysticism, Risba brings
poetry and magic back into contemporary societies. These ‘arts of self’, performed among and with others through actions, happenings, workshops, lectures, exhibitions, etc., create opportunities to reveal, share, and rewire our thinking
bodies. Risba’s long-term project “MRI MS. My Resting In Myself Sane” draws on the radical detour of a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis through ecstatic dance, training, and practices of radical adoration. Risba is a BA graduate from
NABA – Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano and is currently an MA student in Art and Science at Central Saint Martins – University of the Arts London.
STEAM Atelier (Lecce, ITA) is a non-profit organization
founded with the aim of bringing together artists and experts of new technologies to spread interdisciplinary thinking and knowledge of new media arts.
//jatunrisba.com
//steamatelier.eu