Nella Piatek

thank you @linkedspheres.art for this beautiful feature on the day of the winter solstice. One of my most extensive interviews, discussing the role of the cyberwitch, cyberfeminism, ritual practice and teaching on my artistic practice. Felt like an intimate moment of reflection before the coming end of this year. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to engage with critical practitioners this spring equinox, summer solstice and now the winter solstice - what an incredible year. Big thanks to @guille_moreno_mirallas for the invitation and @haami.n for the interview. If you’d like a longer read, you can find the interview in my bio. Wishing you all blessings this yuletide and every day.

‘Dust and Echoes, or What We Made of Stardust’ (2022) is an ecofeminist and counter-apocalyptic response to the future of e-waste and consequently, of minerals. The film rejects the prevailing dystopian end-of-the-world narrative and instead speculates about a circle of cyberwitches and eco-priestesses exploring new forms of solidarity with the earth.  Situated in an alternate reality where intensified extractive processes influence radical practices of soil fertilisation with minerals reclaimed from technological remains, it attempts to make use of erosion and decay to create new systems of growth. Told by Xris, a cyberwitch, eco-priestess and member of a coven, this speculative fiction manifests as an intimate portrait of these spiritual women, offering a micro-vision of the conversations, relationships and rituals present in the coven.

Xris’s attempts to archive their cyberwitchcraftian ways have seeped in from the dark corners of the internet to Vogue! In Isabella Greenwood’s (@sister__bella ) words: “The emergence of internet folklore is a natural byproduct of the convergence between magic and the systemic homogeneity of the internet, creating a suite of cyber-witches, wizards, and other hybrids born from the enchantment of the digital ether. “Technology does not eradicate folklore; it becomes a vital factor in its transmission, providing inspiration for the creation of new folklore.” Magic and the internet are deeply meditative and, at times, dissociative spaces, where the loss of self in social media can be compared to trance-like states induced by magical rituals. As Piatek observes, these internet fictions about the self can also be interpreted as ways to escape the turbulence of our time, as well as a form of resistance against neo capitalist values. Although it initially seems to reflect the paranoia of our age and the constant search for God in godless places, it becomes clear that digital folklore and witchcraft are simply ways of reshaping the divine. The re-enchantment of technology confirms that technology is not inherently opposed to spirituality and that it is, to a certain extent, inevitable-while we may limit screen time or vow never to be iPad parents, the rage of digitalism is everywhere, and the values and aesthetics of the cyber world consolidate them, challenging existing orders in our physical and liminal worlds. In the magical world of cyber witches and folklorists, we find an intriguing compromise: if technology or God cannot be destroyed, they must be integrated, becoming part of contemporary fixation, folklore, tradition, and practice” thank you @sister__bella for making me a part of this conversation. An appropriate and incredible voice carrying the words of an amazing selection of cybertheorists. @voguemagazine @vogue.adria full article is in bio

Join us next weekend on the 23rd of May for our very first joint talk ✨️ We'll be part of @xeno_futurism & @gossamerfog Symposium In/Human Infrastructures Nella Piatek & Melissa Schwarz /// ULTRA/INFRAstructures: Landscapes of Capitalism (7:30pm) Industrial and computational infrastructures are not neutral technological developments, but ideological systems that reorganise agency, ecology, and temporality under capitalism. Through postindustrial landscapes and contemporary data infrastructures, this performance lecture by artists Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz explores how modernity continuously imposes alien architectures while simultaneously producing myths of progress.

Excited to be contributing to this amazing symposium on the 23rd of May, more info to come soon...✨️ Below some more about it, get your tickets! 💫 @xeno_futurism and @gossamerfog invite you to In/Human Infrastructures: a three-day critical technologies symposium, exhibition, and screening programme hosted at Alt_R in Deptford, London. Unfolding across the bank holiday weekend (22-24 May), the symposium will feature a free exhibition and film screenings during the day, followed by a programme of lectures, performances, and workshops each evening. Moving beyond academic posturing and hype-cycle sloptimism, the symposium aims to establish a communal contact zone where artists, theorists, and technologists can transfer the tactical skills and operational knowledge needed to navigate an era of accelerating technological capture and uncertain autonomy. Contributors: @sonia.bernac @parham.ghalamdar @kode9 @smgrfn @harrynym @hyper.forest other_kat @bettimarenko @zeinxmajali @nellapiatek @msschwarz @luciarebolino @maggie_mer Exhibiting Artists: @rrrrrruuuuuubbbbbbzzzzzz @1000111 @linatheebean @parham.ghalamdar @geoffreylillemon_ @zeinxmajali @yuripattison @nellapiatek @msschwarz @maggie_mer @dylanserventi Suzanne Treister @Orphan_drift @zachblas , and more... Curated by @xenodemonology Poster by @myen_000 1722-24 May, 6pm-10pm Alt_R, 1-2, Enclave, 50 Resolution Way, London SE8 4AL

Very excited that our film 'Forest, Stone, Flesh' got selected to be shown at the International Women's Theatre Festival Frankfurt @frauentheaterfestival which is happening from the 22.09. - 28.09.2025. It's part of the Pandora's Box program, Curated by Edith van den Elzen. Text for all the non-German speaking peeps: Forest, Stone, Flesh is an eco-feminist ritual performance in which two travellers journey across the mythical sites of Dartmoor National Park in Cornwall, England. Drawing on hauntology* and posthumanist thought, the film re-examines the region’s history and mythologies through an eco-feminist lens.The body’s materiality becomes a means of accessing these stories and connecting with the few places that carry myths centred on women and slow violence. Through a process called anarchiving – the idea that sites can be understood as living archives – the film re-animates local narratives to imagine alternative realities. *Hauntology: a term for the spectral (ghostly) in history, memory and the present

Some more on the Panel talk of @toratora.c and @nellapiatek on their process of constructing permanent work in the space and their piece "Scarring"

INTRODUCING @nellapiatek ■ Interview published. (link in bio) Introduction Nella Piatek is a London-based artist, designer, and researcher whose work focuses on the relationship between humans, technology, nature, and memory. They specialize in creating immersive experiences that explore themes like digital death, cyber identity, post-humanism, and eco-feminism. Through a combination of performance, film, augmented reality (AR), and speculative design, Nella challenges how we think about life, death, and our connection to the digital world. Their projects have been exhibited internationally, including at The Photographers’ Gallery in London and Ars Electronica in Austria. As an Associate Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London and University of the Arts London, Nella also teaches about critical design, digital futures, and speculative thinking. By blending technology, art, and theory, Nella Piatek invites us to rethink the boundaries between phygital, offering new ways to engage with technology as something intimate, sentimental, and even sacred. ■You recognize as a cyberwitch. Could you elaborate on what this term means to you and how it influences your work? ●Nella Piatek: I believe there are intriguing commonalities between the figure of a critical designer and a witch; both roles perpetuate in constant flux between a creator, researcher, provocateur and facilitator. Both aim to raise awareness of situational phenomena, to develop network-altering strategies and challenge the power structures within techno-capitalist systems. Exploring the legacy of witchcraft and its application to contemporary design thinking is important to me in taking a critical position to address societal challenges radically, and to disrupt the status quo by imagining new values, means of connection or sharing knowledge. I believe the witch can act as a catalyst for reflecting on the semiotic systems of digital technologies and become a narratively skilled methodology to re-imagine, critique and denaturalise social constructs. #interview #cyberaesthetics #cyberwitch #cyberart #artdaily #artistsupport #ecology #feminism

My long-standing fascination with re-framing the everyday sight into an archaeological site has become an obsession. Hauntology is a ghostly presence looming over my creative process, equally, the more enveloped you are by it, the more ingrained and inseparable it feels in all aspects of culture, politics and ecology. I had the pleasure to work with @toratora.c on this project. Thank you for inspiring me with your practice and theory. some thoughts I wrote... Scarring is a site-specific, evolving process that mobilises the concept of the scar as both a material intervention and a methodological proposition. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Cyborg Theory, Object Oriented Ontology, and Glitch Feminism, the work repositions the scar, not as a closed wound or symbol of trauma, but as an active, generative force. Central to the project is a previously concealed waste pipe, now exposed and recast as a collaborator in the work. This pipe becomes the scar: not imposed upon space, but emerging from within it; claiming visibility, function, and a history of suppressed presence. Rather than treating infrastructure as neutral or invisible, Scarring insists on its agency. The pipe is no longer background; it is a glitch within architectural logic, a rupture that challenges aesthetic conventions and social norms around what is allowed to be seen. The scar becomes a way of marking space, but also a strategy of resistance, similar to how Legacy Russell frames the glitch as a site of power for marginalised bodies within dominant systems. Here, the glitch is not a breakdown but a bridge, a site of continuity through disruption. Through iterative engagement with the space, the project enacts scarring as a methodology of visibility and reclamation. It interrogates the tension between what is naturalised as part of a building’s function and what is intentionally hidden, drawing attention to how systems, both architectural and social, prioritise seamlessness over honesty, concealment over confrontation. Scarring invites ongoing re-evaluation of what is considered damage, what is allowed to remain, and what it means to inhabit an evolving space.

Forest, Stone, Flesh - Spectral Traces and Bodily Archives 2025 Forest, Stone, Flesh is an eco-feminist journey across the mythical sites of Dartmoor National Park in Cornwall. Through the process of anarchiving, the body is used as a material to access histories and to activate the few locations which carry myths that centre around women and slow violence. Anarchiving relates to the idea that sites can be understood as living archives; as such the film ‘re-animates’ local narratives to imagine alternative realities. The film is a ritual performance in which two travellers journey across the site’s past, present and future. Through the lenses of hauntology and post-humanist thought, the history and mythologies of the area are re-examined in connection to an eco-feminist approach. This project was created as part of the Mayes Creative Residency: Creative Inspiration From An Ancient Landscape funded by the Lottery Fund. @mayescreative Collaboration between Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz Credits: Direction: Nella Piatek and Melissa Schwarz Travellers: Melissa Schwarz and Nella Piatek Poetry: Melissa Schwarz and Nella Piatek Cinematography and Editing: Nella Piatek

Our amazing panelists 4 Wednesday <3333 graphics @andreaevgenieva 3D @eri_dart

We are presenting the Rendered Girl 💕👾💕 OPENING THE 16TH MAY 19.00_22.00 PM. 62 Roman road Bethnal Green The participating artists are @annausadi @elleannac @neohmah @lauriexangel @_madamelala @toratora.c @nellapiatek The rendered girl is a Month-long meditation on gendered constructs, domesticity, and the fraught mirror of the body under the gaze of a patriarchal world. Scars, reflections and the pink technological bodies resurface in resistance. Through installations, performance, image, and text, we gather to examine what it means to be "a girl"—not as a fixed identity but as a layered, shifting performance enacted across time, platforms, and flesh. We linger in the tender and turbulent spaces of the home supposed, where girlhood is often first staged and surveilled. Here, bodies are shaped, watched, and trained—fused with longing and resistance. Our exploration reaches into the pixelated archives of the internet, where hyper-dependence on the image of the body has become both weapon and cry. The gallery becomes a room of echoes, where soft rebellion and cultural residue speak louder than silence. The exhibition acknowledges that the term “girl” transcends biological essentialism—it belongs, too, to trans girls, non-binary people, femmes of all kinds who have performed, been prescribed, or reclaimed this role. We assert the urgent need for trans rights to be protected, uplifted, and respected without condition. This is also a meditation on the inventedness of gender itself, on performance as necessity, survival, and subversion. The works here trace gestures, postures, garments, and longings—mapping how patriarchal society dresses its control in lace and soft pink, in demands for thinness, for obedience, for self-surveillance.