Teo Ala-Ruona

“Using written speculative fiction, somato-fictional exercises and technology as mediums to imagine closeness and intimacy across distance, this work presents a fantasy in which the performer is welcoming another being to co-inhabit their body in a mutualistic and parasitic way, for the time of the performance.

Prior to the performance the two performers will do long-distance speculative embodied exercises together in order to reach out to one another through their imagination. These exercises stem from an exercise called "Mycelium of Nerves", created by Ala-Ruona's colleague, artist Outi Condit.

The performer speaks a duet with a loudspeaker. Together they form a techno-imaginary-symbiotic-cyborg by speaking in unison: the performer is the host and the loudspeaker’s sound is the parasite that visits the site of the performance through the performer’s body.”

- Teo Ala-Ruona

Text samples for the MAHA Pavilion performance proposal,
​2020, courtesy of the artist

Image (top to bottom):

- illustration, Endosymbiotic Theory, Philpot Education
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- Endosymbiotic Theory, Philpot Education