Neitin Keré is a Practice as Research dissertation in which I argue for the possibility of generating less hierarchical relationships between a human (Neitin) and a non-human (Keré, a mechanical puppet) element in Performing Arts. I do so by exploring the process of building Keré, my performance partner. Although the main goal is to diminish the hierarchies and power relationships between the puppet and the human element, I must acknowledge that a completely horizontal dynamic will not be possible. 

My practice explores the agency of the puppet and how we can adapt to and affect one another, as well as other elements in the performance, using mostly low-fi, open-source technology in the construction. Keré is made of both organic and non-organic materials, and it is built with a sustainable approach in mind, seeking to reuse and upcycle materials, allowing imperfection and trial and error to guide the process, and letting materials have a voice and power in themselves (Bennett). By using sensors and programming a random movement pattern, I argue that Keré achieved a higher degree of perceived agency and autonomy, while remaining both inert and alive at the same time, allowing the object to become subject and becoming-animate through the performance (Parker-Starbuck).

The research is a situated practice within the Catalan context. It draws on tropes that emerged from fieldwork with several companies and collectives working in Hybrid performance (Street Arts and Intermedia) and has taken place in public services and spaces offered by the municipality of Barcelona. Performing Arts can be a place for speculation, experimentation, and imagination on interspecies understandings, and the use of technology can promote a different point of view on other non-human entities that surround us, promoting less hierarchical medianaturecultural intertwinements, and taking a postanthropocentric view that displaces the human as the central element of performance (Braidotti; Haraway).