Nuka: Chaos is often considered as a base state that allows something to come into existence without the need for beginning or birth. A place which is both full and empty, in constant change, out of which a fully formed, climactic thing can materialise, as though emerging from a puff of smoke. One of the oldest goddess figures of the Babylonian kingdom, Tiamat, also represents the dichotomy of emptiness and creation that inhabits chaos, a point between two things.

Creating a new character requires something similar, removing yourself from your identity, and preempting that emptiness as if you lived your whole life as something else - you will need this to experience the world as a character instantly. In Genesis, God's journey to creation, which started also in a chaotic prestate first and foremost, begins with light, Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelly’s universe almost replicates the creation of god’s, by using chemical reactions that create the lightning which gave birth to his monsters in an attempt to artificially produce new life.

His endeavours and desires came not only from the need to acquire ultimate knowledge but also motivation derived from emotions surrounding death. These days I wonder what sort of artificially-made lightning can give birth to our old selves/dead ancestors? I have been working on my practice with it in mind.

Nuka: I think I challenge myself a lot to become a different person in the social environment, I love going outside in my character and making strangers feel maybe confused and excited at the same time. In my previous work, I used to adopt disguises when carrying out research in various places, which was at times problematic; and although the experiences really helped out developing my characterisation skills, I quite possibly owe some apologies to certain people.

When I was doing my masters at one of the most bureaucratic institutions I have seen, I was trying to be more monstrous, and exaggerate my queerness in a more subversive way. Having different masks on (mentally and physically) provides abilities that go beyond humanness, especially when putting on a monstrous mask, and monsters can represent what Halberstam calls a disruption of categories.

I think through the embodiment of monstrous characters I am able to create strange environments; midpoints between fear and desire, a twilight zone of form and transformation. It opens the door to the alternate world, a portal yet to be realised. I think that by demonstrating strangeness, I can approach the audience more easily. I often ask audiences to participate and take control over performances. It’s something I truly enjoy, changing around the roles between the viewer and the performer, but ultimately I would like everyone to just have a good time together at performances.

Nuka: I think that there is always a witness whether visible or not, and there is still always some form of participation for those who are absent. R. D. Laing said that we cannot encounter our own behaviour; in most cases the collected behaviours that others see in you are what form the real you, ie you are the way others see you.

The cruel reality is that this often is not the way you see yourself. In the past, as much as the idea of this condition interested me, it also had me aggravated, and through trying to direct my practice against these conditions I developed massively. I think now that what was missing from that time was a materialistic approach, I was trying too hard to be all spiritual. 

I think queerness in combination with the digital/virtual can go beyond the shape of these experiential politics, and override the meanings and conditions for otherness. You can better control how you are perceived in the digital world, you can make things human from non-human and vice versa. and I believe we are heading in the direction where identity can exist simultaneously with and without others.