Embodied Bits

Pedro Latas

The Master research “Embodied Bits” concerns how trans-human, post-digital and post-internet ideas relate to my Queer experience. It is, in a nutshell, an ongoing research on how the technological world has spilled over into the biological world and how Queer folks are front and centre when it comes to taking advantage of technological developments in order to realise their identities. The research question is “How do we perform ourselves in the digital realm?”. Though it started as a research on the practicalities and aesthetics of internet/networked-based performances it quickly opened a Pandora’s Box of social inquiry and analysis. Performing ourselves means performing ethnicity, gender, sexuality, cultural identity... There is an inevitability in drawing a direct connection between these topics and how do we, as singular and, paradoxically, plural human beings within ourselves engage with modern day technology. Through technology we are able to build ourselves, to draft new identities, to build again if they no longer suit our needs. As an artistic research, “Embodied Bits” looks into how digital media has influenced human experience and focuses on the experiences of non-normative bodies and identities, in which I include my own. These topics are interlaced with my own compositional and performative work, always informed and inspired by the previously mentioned ideas and historical context.

Thank you to Alison Isadora for guiding me in these past two years, for helping me make sense of my trans-dimensional-reality-crossing-back-propagating thoughts and ideas, and for being an inspiring artist and human.

Thank you to Mayke Nas, whose collection of insect photos on Facebook was a daily treat, and Yannis Kyriakides, the one to blame for my wish to travel to and study in The Netherlands. For the past 4 years, they have put up with my artistic anxieties and guided me towards becoming a mindful and complete artist.

Thank you to my mom, Maria Manuela Latas, my dad, António Latas, and my sister, Rita Latas, whose support was always present, even during my long stretches of silence and inactivity on our Whatsapp group.

Thank you to The Siren, Kristia Michael, for being a continuous source of beauty and magic, and for allowing me to stay at her apartment with her snake, Amoun, to write part of this paper.

Thank you to my Atlantean siblings, Risteárd Ó hAodha and Róis Ní Chonghaile.

Thank you to wolfperson Zeynep Oktar.

Thank you to my noise partner Margarida Albino.

Thank you to my oldest friends Duarte Antunes, Valéria Ferreira, Cláudia Amado and Filipa Jaques.

And last but not least, thank you to all those who have fought tooth and nail for the empowerment and affirmation of Queer lives.

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