NEWSLETTER
CONTRIBUTION

During my residency I investigated the dualities present between the invisible/visible, ancestral/artificial and transient/permanent elements within the digital sphere, namely the relationship between rituals and algorithms - concluding that there is an intrinsic intelligence within the invisible that surrounds our daily rituals. By looking at rituals as the embodiment of meaning, it helps us to understand the importance of performing them to bring an acute awareness and intention into our often repetitive and monotonous daily lives. On the other hand, an algorithm encompasses a set of instructions to resolve a particular issue, thereby being a transmissor of information in abstract terms. 

Both rituals and algorithms carry a divinatory quality as the outcomes are often uncertain. What differs between them is primarily the element of time, as a ritual requires our full embodied presence, whereas an algorithm is a ritual devoid of the breath; which is the human element that keeps a ritual alive. The time within a ritual is stopped and a moment of a higher and often inexplicable connection is held in the mind - there isn’t space for algorithmic distractions.

Sculpture by Rob Mulholland and part of Catarina’s residency

My research was heavily influenced by techno-spiritual systems and animism, studying this reinforced the primal qualities of what makes us humans and our cosmic heritage within our heavily tech-mediated 3D reality. Instead of it evolving in a linear manner, I believe the path is leading in a spiralled way - collectively and individually we are being brought out from the outer algorithmic arena and taken back into the inner realms where ancestral intelligence holds hands with the emerging artificial - a moment of expansion and rebirth, from nature to the cyberspace.

Thanks to RAKE Collective and Community for the warm welcome and support I’ve had over the past month. I hope to continue my research on this subject matter - you can follow my work on www.catarinarodrigues.co.uk