How to Integrate Yourself into Society is a performative video piece featuring the Ethnic Brooch, created for the exhibition Magical Hotspot at Vent Space Gallery in 2020. The work explores pseudomagic through symbolic ritual and material interaction. In the video, the jewellery witch Seraphita pricks her finger with the brooch’s needle, allowing blood to drip onto a cracked phone screen. This act symbolises a ritualistic attempt at integration, merging personal identity with digital and societal representations.
The piece employs Haptic Visuality, emphasising the embodied experience of the brooch’s needle piercing the skin. Close-up shots and textural details enhance the sensory impact, making the act of penetration both symbolically and physically felt. This multisensory approach intensifies the emotional resonance of the ritual, transforming the brooch into a charged object within a speculative, pseudomagical context.
Idea and performance: Darja Popolitova
Video effects: Ando Naulainen
Sound: Andres Nõlvak
© Darja Popolitova