MONICA TOLIA
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  • PERFORMANCE
    • a snake in the house means the family will never want >
      • The Place (June 2022)
      • Deptford X Festival (July 2021)
    • FU Salon
    • Kyoko
    • Flora / Fauna / Machina >
      • Chalton Gallery for Art Night (June 2019)
      • Gossamer Fog (January 2019)
    • Technologies of Lived Abstraction: FUTURE PRESENT >
      • FUTURE PRESENT 2
      • FUTURE PRESENT 1
    • BioSonics
  • VISUAL
  • MEDIA
    • SOUNDS
    • VIDEO: Low Murmur
    • VIDEO + COLLABORATION: 2m
  • COLLECTIVE
    • NIAN is here! 年到了
    • Lunar Late
    • Lunar New Year Festival 2022
    • Deptford X Festival 2021: Have you eaten yet?
    • ABOUT 你吃了吗

Kyoko

2022
Performance (dance + live sound, sci-fi clips & CG simulations of water), 20 min
​
A conversation unfolds as I lay silently, on the outside:

“I’m here to test if you have a consciousness, or if you’re just simulating one.  How does that make you feel?”
“It makes me feel sad…
— excerpt, Ex machina, 2014


In late-1800s, I was already deemed cyborg.
About a hundred years later, European feminists would declare:
becoming cyborg = liberation

This condition I’m not sure that I’ve yet had the pleasure yet of escaping: 
still suspended in an uncanny valley.

“I can help you look after the house and cook. Take care of kids and manage processes. I am also a sports expert on bed… is your on-call — good partner. My power can last 175 years.”
— found film excerpt, 2020


Simulation 986,589…

I dreamt I drifted into waters so deep 
without consequences.  
That my body wouldn’t fail
before reaching the bottom.
That I wouldn’t short out… 
of energy. 
of breath. 

To experience the freedom
of a bodiless mass. 
Of pretending I too could be bodiless 
& all that comes 
with it.

I, too,
dream…
Picture
Performance at Décalé 6. Space289 (London). 18 June 2022.
Monica Tolia · Kyoko Returns (excerpt)
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​​©  2023  Monica Tolia

  • ABOUT
    • Bio & Contact
    • CV
    • NEWS
  • PERFORMANCE
    • a snake in the house means the family will never want >
      • The Place (June 2022)
      • Deptford X Festival (July 2021)
    • FU Salon
    • Kyoko
    • Flora / Fauna / Machina >
      • Chalton Gallery for Art Night (June 2019)
      • Gossamer Fog (January 2019)
    • Technologies of Lived Abstraction: FUTURE PRESENT >
      • FUTURE PRESENT 2
      • FUTURE PRESENT 1
    • BioSonics
  • VISUAL
  • MEDIA
    • SOUNDS
    • VIDEO: Low Murmur
    • VIDEO + COLLABORATION: 2m
  • COLLECTIVE
    • NIAN is here! 年到了
    • Lunar Late
    • Lunar New Year Festival 2022
    • Deptford X Festival 2021: Have you eaten yet?
    • ABOUT 你吃了吗