A Signal Slows the Body Writes the Code
Katya Savel (INGAHEE)
‘A Signal Slows the Body Writes the Code’ is a durational performance by Katya Savel developed through three interconnected phases. The work begins with a private action in Barcelona, where the artist walks through the city collecting sand and soil, creating an intimate material mapping of place. This meditative gesture connects her body to the site, elevating the natural within the urban environment while gathering the raw material for the public performance.
The second phase takes place at SWAB9, where Savel kneels and arranges the collected earth into angular, geometric formations that evoke digital landscapes. Her body functions as an instrument of precision, yet remains marked by breathing, fatigue, and imperfection. The performance exposes the “glitch” within systems of control, balancing nature, machine logic, human labor, and ritual. Once completed, the forms are deliberately destroyed by the same hands that created them, echoing the impermanence of sand mandalas.
In the final, private phase, the sand and earth are returned to the city and its landscape. Subtly transformed, they carry the energetic and emotional imprint of the performance back into the ground.
