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 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 and 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 denaturalize social constructs.

I identify as a cyberwitch because as my ancient, mystical, counterpart, I devote my practice to new ways of using the tools at my disposal to create rituals for healing, growth and more emotive relationships with our technologies. Instead of those being only in the realm of nature, I merge ritualistic practices with the experimentation of digital material. I harness and evoke the ethereal potential of the digital realm to conjure, to cast, to wish upon. For me, it signifies a blend of empowerment and creativity, where the internet and digital matter are tools to play, experiment and enchant with. By identifying myself as a cyberwitch, I see myself and my many artistic incarnations as a hyperbody – a cyborg transgressing the physical limitations of my flesh and body, and existing in the entanglement where it blends with the physical materiality of digital technologies and its digital extensions. I would like to think about the hyperbody through the different incarnations of my own, starting from the ghostly desktop flâneuse, to the organic cyborg and lastly the decimated pixel-flesh.

The term cyberwitch comes from an evolution from a historically troubled and fascinating figure of the witch. Nowadays, witchcraft is a self-conscious act of resistance and subversion, however in 16th century Europe, the witch did not have a self-empowered and self-reflexive position, instead was disciplined and violated by the patriarchy. The implications of this abusive repression gave rise to a feminist reincarnation of the witch,
who redeems its voice, agency, and situated knowledge. Contemporary witchcraft renders the witch as a figure offering legitimacy to implement modern innovations, share knowledge, challenge the norm, and create unorthodox means of connection; reclaiming the lost futures and rights its historical counterpart was deprived of. I think what is interesting about the witch is that there is a distinction between what we believed a witch could do and what someone identified as a witch was. I think I do relate to that dichotomy – my digital persona, Xris, is of a mystical presence with intriguing rituals, yet the creator behind this figure, is yet another simple human.

The merging of digital and physical elements in my work is both a methodology and a philosophy rooted in the belief that the digital and the tangible are not separate but endlessly entangled. My pieces are invitations for the audience to step into this mindset, to feel the connection between the human experience and the technological frameworks we inhabit.

Take CTRL+R to Re-flesh as an example. In this speculative funeral, the cyberwitch persona I embody becomes a medium for reflecting on the fragile interplay between the corporeal and the digital. It is a ritual that mourns, critiques, and ultimately reimagines the relationship between human bodies, natural cycles, and technological flesh. Here, the audience witnesses the cyberwitch rejecting the techno-consumptive gaze of society through an intimate act of self-destruction—a performance where the boundaries of flesh extend beyond the human, into the raw materials of earth and machine.

Ritual is essential in this process. Through rituals, I explore how digital tools can be elevated from mere functionality to vehicles for emotional resonance and spiritual exploration. These rituals disrupt the everyday perception of technology as cold, lifeless machinery. Instead, they evoke the ethereal potential of the digital—a capacity to conjure, to heal, and to connect. This shift encourages viewers to perceive digital tools not as external objects but as extensions of their own narratives. Technology, in my view, becomes a form of flesh—a malleable, ephemeral substance that integrates into the stories we tell about ourselves.

Impermanence, as a theme, runs subconsciously through these explorations. The digital, for all its promise of permanence, is inherently transient. Servers crash, files corrupt, platforms dissolve, and entire ecosystems of memory vanish. I lean into this fragility, using it as a framework to reflect on the human condition. For instance, the rituals within CTRL+R to Re-flesh or Into the Ethereal ask what it means to embrace decay rather than fear it, to see the cycles of obsolescence in technology as mirroring those of our bodies.

By framing these rituals within hybrid spaces—blurring the virtual and the real—I aim to create moments where the audience can sense the impermanence of both realms. It is a reminder that while digital technologies may extend our reach, they are not invincible. They are, like us, susceptible to time, entropy, and forgetting. In these moments, the digital becomes a space for mourning and meaning-making, where we can reflect on what is left behind when the circuits dim and the screens go dark.

Ultimately, the merging of these realms in my work is not just about exploring the interplay of tools and bodies—it is about creating spaces where audiences can question what it means to be human in a world where the digital and physical are inseparable. It is an effort to reimagine not only the role of technology in our lives but also the ways we can find intimacy, ritual, and purpose within its fleeting glow.

Speculative futures are not merely an artistic pursuit for me—they are a methodology for questioning, reimagining, and critiquing the present. They allow us to peer into the liminal spaces of what could be, illuminating the desires, anxieties, and contradictions embedded in our relationship with technology and the socio-political systems that shape us. I create these futures because they act as mirrors, revealing not only the worlds we hope to inhabit but also the ones we fear. The digital and physical worlds will increasingly converge, pushing the boundaries of presence and in these convergences, speculative design serves as a tool for navigating this hybrid terrain with intentionality.

The practice of crafting speculative futures enables me to examine our socio-technical entanglements and the unintended consequences of progress. In my work Into the Ethereal, for example, I imagine a post-Internet future where digital ruins become a site of memory and ritual. This piece responds to the erasure of marginalized communities when smaller platforms are absorbed or shut down by technological monopolies. Why do I delve into these speculative ruins? Because they reveal a longing to preserve what capitalism and techno-optimism discard. They are a way to reclaim agency over the digital past while rethinking what communal digital futures might look like.

Speculative futures also allow me to use folklore and myth-making to critique contemporary realities. By integrating ancient practices into technological imaginaries, I aim to forge pathways that are more spiritual, sensuous, and emotional. This is not escapism but a deliberate act of grounding the future in the wisdom of the past. What would happen if we approached technological design as ritual-making? What if we built systems with care, reciprocity, and a deep awareness of their ecological and human impact? Speculative futures provide a safe space to test these questions without the constraints of the present.

Importantly, these futures are rooted in a desire for alternative ways of being. I am inspired by the potential of speculation to dismantle oppressive systems and propose new modes of existence. As I explore in CTRL+R to Re-flesh, imagining futures where technology and nature are seen as intertwined forces of “flesh” disrupts the techno-capitalist paradigm that positions them as separate and exploitable. Speculative futures give me the language and framework to articulate these critiques while also offering visions of healing, growth, and radical connection.

Ultimately, I create speculative futures because I see them as a way to practice the future in the now. They are acts of design, performance, and storytelling that challenge the inevitability of the status quo. These narratives are intended to provoke, inspire, and sometimes unsettle—but above all, they remind us that the future is not something to be passively awaited but actively imagined and created.

Rituals foreground the body and pay attention to intentions, offering opportunities to explore how values can rapidly change in volatile environments and preferable futures. At their core, they are acts of meaning-making, ways for us to process the unknown and connect with the intangible. The evolution of rituals is most evident in how they reinterpret traditional acts through the lens of technology. Where once we performed rituals with fire, earth, and water, today we summon meaning through data, code, and digital traces. The rituals I practice slow us down, compelling us to pause and reimagine our relationship with technologies that are often designed for efficiency, extraction, and endless consumption. However, I recognize this as a premeditated practice, whilst there are many rituals we engage with daily that are practised unconsciously, often benefiting the platforms that instil rituals as a form of capitalist gain.

We engage in rituals of sacrificing our data for future prospects, cyclically re-visiting and performing a set of behavioural actions in technological sites (the platform) rather than religious. If we boil down the ritual to a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order – we start noticing the amount of rituals we engage with daily. From nodding to your phone to unlock its doors, to rejecting cookies or checking Instagram. The question at hand is, how do we want these rituals to evolve and how do we steer that locally?

XRiS-00222 was inspired by my desire to explore digital legacy and corporeal extension. The project reflects on what a cyberwitch might leave behind for future generations, creating a contemplative space for an audience to engage with the hyperbody as both an archive and a sanctuary. It is an introspective monologue about identity, technological enmeshment, and the redefinition of presence through AR interfaces.

XRiS-00222 felt like a natural evolution that stemmed from my previous research and works into cyber witchcraft, archival practices and the ‘digital as a sanctuary’. The cyberwitch in this work came into existence as a sister of the cyberwitches present in my other works; such as Into the Ethereal, CTRL+R to Re-flesh or Dust and Echoes, or What We Made of Stardust. I think CTRL+R to Re-flesh was a crucial inspiration behind this work, as there I had reflected on the consequences of wanting to extend our corporeality, however, the question that hung in the air at the end of the performance was: ‘What would a cyberwitch want to leave behind for future generations?’ which was left open and remained unanswered. XRiS-00222 is a mediation on this question. I often use my feelings as a baseline, and a process of introspection when I embody these characters for my creative practice. I believe there is a growing interest amongst society in leaving a sort of digital ‘Memory Palace’ behind, however, instead of simply doing so, I wanted my character to open a philosophical discussion of how such a rendition, or digital fragmentation of themselves, makes them feel about their corporeality. The work became a sort of introspective monologue where the cyberwitch reflects on their journey from being birthed, entangled and laid to rest with her technological devices.

Audiences meet Xris, a digital fragmentation of a deceased cyberwitch, who decided that a digital capsule would be a more suitable gravestone for their body. Upon activating the AR filter, the audience places a portal in their immediate space and has the opportunity to gradually navigate through the different sections of the cybertomb. You are invited to listen to their last words, the description of their entanglement with digital technology and their feelings about it.

XRiS-00222 explores the entanglements of the metaverse with the physical space to reflect on how augmented reality (AR) filters can become a means of connecting with archived digital identities. This interactive AR filter opens a communication portal between a visitor and a cyberwitch avatar. The audience can explore an intimate story as the cyberwitch reflects on cyborgism, the archive as a sanctuary and spiritual technology.

Cyberfeminism is foundational to my work, offering both a lens of critique and a methodology for creation. It influences not only the themes I explore but also the way I approach storytelling, design, and speculative futures. At its core, cyberfeminism challenges the patriarchal and capitalist structures embedded within technology, reclaiming the digital as a space for empowerment, creativity, and resistance. My work embodies this ethos, using speculative narratives, rituals, and critical design to question who holds power in technological systems and how we might imagine more inclusive, equitable futures.

In my practice, cyberfeminism manifests through the figure of the cyberwitch, who acts as a vessel for exploring identity, agency, and the socio-political implications of our digital entanglements. Cyberfeminist scholars and practitioners reclaim the figure of the witch, as a mode of resistance, innovative exploration of existing tools, as a figure opposite to the the forces of patriarchy and capitalism. The cyberwitch redeems their voice, agency, and situated knowledge, functioning as a counterpoint to the systems of control that define our interactions with technology. In works like CTRL+R to Re-flesh, I use this figure to critique the consumptive nature of our relationship with digital devices, highlighting how these systems perpetuate ecological exploitation and human alienation. By reframing technology as flesh—interwoven with the earth and the body—I challenge audiences to see their technological tools as part of a shared ecosystem, not as disposable objects.

Cyberfeminism also inspires me to explore themes of connection and community within digital spaces. Projects like Into the Ethereal respond to the erasure of marginalized communities in the wake of digital monopolization. By imagining a post-Internet archive of cyberwitch rituals, I question how digital spaces can both empower and exclude, calling attention to the need for care and preservation in our online interactions.
In this sense, cyberfeminism is not just about critique—it is also about imagining new possibilities for belonging and resistance.

Through my work, I hope to spark conversations about the role of technology in shaping identity and relationships. I want audiences to question the power dynamics inherent in digital systems and consider how we might design technologies that prioritize care, equity, and emotional resonance. For instance, in Dust and Echoes, or What We Made of Stardust, I explore the ecological consequences of technological progress, imagining a coven of cyberwitches who re-earth minerals from electronic waste. This work asks: What responsibilities do we bear for the technologies we create and discard? How might feminist and ecological frameworks reshape our approach to innovation?

Cyberfeminism in my practice is about disruption and reimagination. It seeks to denaturalize the systems we take for granted, exposing their socio-political constructs while offering alternative visions of what could be. I aim to provoke introspection and action, encouraging audiences to see themselves as participants in shaping technological futures—not just passive users. By foregrounding the voices and practices of those historically marginalized in technological spaces, I hope to inspire a sense of agency and possibility, opening pathways for more just and imaginative engagements with the digital world.

There is an undeniable connection between my academic work and my artistic practice. Teaching immerses me in a continuous cycle of critical inquiry, where I am constantly questioning, reflecting, and challenging the boundaries of artistic and design methodologies. It keeps me in a critical mindset, pushing me to explore different ways of thinking and practice. This symbiosis enriches both spheres of my work, as each feeds into and informs the other. Both platforms allow me to critically engage with the world, explore alternative futures, and continuously evolve my understanding of what it means to create, to connect, and to challenge the status quo. This interplay is what keeps my practice alive, adaptive, and deeply rooted in both theory and experimentation.

Academia provides a space where theoretical foundations are laid and critical dialogues flourish. My academic focus on digital cultures, speculative futures, and post-humanism complements my creative explorations. It gives me the critical tools to interrogate the socio-political implications of technology while also offering a platform to test speculative methodologies. This feedback loop between theory and practice is essential to my work. Through teaching, I am not only introducing students to critical theories, but I am also revisiting and evolving my own ideas. As I aim to practice the future in the now, testing out alternatives of being; imagining futures with new social values and desires mediated by different modalities, these explorations are as much about guiding others as they are about discovering new possibilities within my own work.

Teaching is a space of constant exchange—an incubator of knowledge and creativity that stimulates and sustains my artistic practice. Teaching is not just about imparting knowledge but about engaging in a collaborative process of questioning and imagining. Being surrounded by students, with their diverse perspectives and emerging voices, keeps me reflective and curious. My encouragement of their journeys often seeps into my own sense of motivation, creating a feedback loop where their energy and explorations inspire me. In this way, teaching is not a one-sided act but a mutual process of growth. I push my students to ask what is important for them to contribute to this world as designers or artists. By constantly asking these questions I require myself to be equally determined and introspective.

Into the Ethereal explores memory and identity in a post-Internet future, where digital ruins become archives of forgotten communities. The project examines how memory can survive in the fragments of digital ruins, challenging audiences to think about the spiritual and emotional dimensions of their technological traces. Into the Ethereal is an interactive fiction set in a Post-Internet future, where servers of smaller social platforms such as Tumblr are shut down as a result of an oligopoly of larger platforms. Consequently, causing archives of certain marginalised online communities to be wiped out.

Into the Ethereal builds on the promises and limitations of digital technologies, and explores the lost futures of those left behind in abandoned or obliterated internet structures. By using witchcraft as a methodology, this interactive piece intends to explore radical futures and the new experiences that could emerge if human attitudes and views towards digital technologies become more spiritual, sensuous and emotional. Here, the contemporary witch is a figure that gives legitimacy to enact new unconventional practices, whilst sharing and upkeeping situated knowledge that is marginalised by society. This narratively skilled voice allows the audience to step into an experience where previous ontological and epistemological constructs are disregarded. The witch allows the audience to acquire a new thinking tool, a perspective of the ‘Other’, a lens of an alien anthropologist, which has the legitimacy to critique existing socio-political matters and create radical rituals with everyday technologies. Into the Ethereal intends to show how the lens of non-conformist cyberwitches can be applied to practice for creating new means of critique, de-naturalisation, empowerment and activism.

The project responds to the current proliferation of witchcraft in social media spaces which suggests a desire for new ways of creating connection, existential meaning and self-care. Inspired by contemporary practices of Tumblr witchcraft, Into the Ethereal plays with the languages and semiology of information and communication technologies, such as file systems, data storage or social networks. For these speculative witches, digital witchcraft becomes a creative material and outlet for inclinations, which allows for the release of social discomfort and frustration towards capitalist hegemony. The spatiality of Photoshop, code and social media allow for new worlds to be created and current realities modified, where witchcraft becomes a participatory, political action that challenges the status quo and empowers the creation of glitches that refuse, mobilise and encrypt (Russell, 2020). The different sets of semiotics, languages and constructs inherent in witchcraft provide the designer with a way to estrange familiarity and disassemble the conventions and interfaces of digital technologies, making it possible to regard everyday objects and practices through a new perspective. The practice of digital witchcraft in Into the Ethereal lies beyond standard perception, cognition and experience of digital technology and creates new intimate relationships and views on the affordances these technologies provide.

The project is a personal catalyst for using witchcraft as a methodology to imagine new futures where relationships with technological systems are re-imagined, critiqued and defamiliarised through spiritual practice. This project uses experimental realism as a ficto-critical method of storytelling and speculation, where it provokes more questions than it suggests answers. However, its value perhaps does not lie in the speculation of future rituals and attitudes towards technological fossils, but rather in its ability to unveil the questions around digital spiritual practice that are currently unheard of and situate them in public discourse. We might be tempted to ask why should we care or discuss the mortality or immortality of internet decay and most importantly why would we ever return to it. The use of speculative rituals around abandoned technology could allow an audience to think through the present and its implications, on issues that might magnify in the future and values of separate togetherness, digital immortality and digital existence that might become stronger with the future to come.

Through this project, I intend to think about how speculative rituals provoke discussion on the nature, use and consequences of information technology and new media. By using “broken world thinking” (Jackson, 2014, p.221) and world-building techniques, this project explores how social worlds could react and make claims on the nature of technological fossils if enough attention and value were attributed to them through a nostalgic lens of appreciation of the limits and temporality of the worlds we inhabit. The question then becomes what we make of these facts, and what do we do next?

The struggles of navigating the socio-political complexity of the digital realm will stay with us for the long run. On one hand, we are lured in by the cosmic possibility of connection and new forms of digital community-building, but on the other, we foster feelings of dissatisfaction and alienation. The digital spaces we occupy or spend time in, are the simulations we chose. Whether that is a brain-numbing one, a cage fight, an infinite advertisement scroll or a room for poetic lamentation. I think it is important to keep paying attention to how our digital gaze influences our values and perceptions of self. digital space has become so production-focused, with everyone throwing content at one another with no time for its actual digestion. The cyberwitch persona is my way of exploring these paradoxes—using introspective and affective storytelling to observe oneself from the perspective of an ‘Other’, to reconnect with our values and to foster a more emotionally and environmentally sustainable relationship with our technologies.

I see digital technology as another creation that has sprung many conversations about its effect on our perception of the self; its rapid introduction, democratisation and evolution have quickly shifted it from a solely technological landscape to a multilayered cultural one. With additions of new layers of culture emerge new desires, come new interpretations, critiques and reflections of their implications. I think that with the democratisation and proliferation of digital technologies, we will continue to see artistic discussions about their implications, and how they affect the selves and society, while the technology itself plays a role in these mediations.

Looking to the future, I see my practice evolving toward an even deeper engagement with locality and the layers of history embedded within spaces. The concept of hauntology increasingly fascinates me—the idea that every place is an archive, holding traces of past intentions, desires, and unrealized futures. I want to explore how contemporary culture continually layers itself over these residues, creating new palimpsests of meaning and memory. By examining how we live among these ghosts of the past, I hope to further unravel the relationship between space, identity, and the temporal cycles of impermanence and continuity.

Recently, I’ve begun to incorporate sound and durational sculptural works into my practice, adding new dimensions to the speculative worlds I create. These mediums allow me to explore the ephemeral and the tangible simultaneously. I am experimenting with ways to evoke presence and absence—to render the unseen, the forgotten, and the imagined audible. In these works, the act of creation itself often becomes the ritual, while the remnants—whether narrative traces, sculptural forms, or digital fragments—become the archive. These archives hold space for audiences to encounter the rituals and narratives that unfold within my speculative futures.

I am also deeply curious about where the persona of Xris might travel next. Xris has been a consistent thread in my work, embodying the role of a cyberwitch, archivist, and explorer of hybrid spaces. I view Xris not as a static entity but as a character shaped by the environments and relationships they encounter. Their evolution mirrors the themes I’m drawn to—impermanence, digital ontologies, and the interplay between body and machine. The characters and worlds they engage with will shape not only their narrative but also the trajectory of my practice, offering new ways to explore legacy and digital storytelling.

In terms of themes, I am drawn to exploring the emotional and ecological consequences of technological progress. Works like Dust and Echoes or What We Made Of Stardust have touched on these ideas, and I want to continue investigating how speculative design can serve as a lens for rethinking our relationship with the natural world. What would it mean to design technologies that honour the cycles of decay, renewal, and interconnection that define life on this planet?

I see my practice as a continuous unfolding—a ritual of exploration in itself. It is not about arriving at fixed answers but about creating spaces where questions can be asked, histories can be uncovered, and futures can be imagined. I am excited to see how these explorations evolve, guided by the places, characters, and audiences I encounter along the way.