pangea_in_latent_space-_tectonics_of-_otherness
Pangea in Latent Space: The Tectonics of Otherness
Pangea in Latent Space: The Tectonics of Otherness is a research-creation project initiated and led by Marlon Barrios Solano (Venezuela/USA) and María Luisa Angulo (El Salvador/France) as part of the Pangea_IA Collective (August 2024-October 2025). It is being developed during the residency Beyond Gravity at DIPOD / Theater im Depot in Dortmund, Germany, within the Beyond Gravity Festival and Symposium (October 1–5, 2025).
This project investigates the tectonics of otherness — the deep, shifting forces that shape relationships between coloniality and postcoloniality, self and other, human and machine, memory and speculation. We understand these forces as dynamic vectors, continuously in motion, intersecting across bodies, lands, and epistemologies.
Just as the continents of Pangea once drifted apart, so too do identities, histories, and knowledge systems. The most constant element we have discovered through this research is movement — migration, displacement, and transformation. Even the land itself has moved.
Within this framework, we have created a physical and epistemic space, traversed by artificial intelligence, where the knowing of self and other becomes entangled in networks of power, perception, and imagination. This tectonic space is alive and mutable, transforming from day to day as the residency unfolds.
The space, created within the Festival Pangea in Latent Space, also welcomes the participation of four international collaborators:
- Lenara Werle (Brazil/Germany)
- Marcel Gbeffa (Benin)
- Vera Rivas (Mexico)
- Oliver Walton (Australia/UK)
Together, we co-create an evolving field of encounters — a shared ecosystem of movement, sound, text, and synthetic imagery.
Visitors are invited to engage through an array of interactive interfaces, activities and applications, designed as portals for encounter. Each app or installation functions as a conceptual node, part of a living and adaptive ecosystem.
The project opens on October 1st at 6:00 p.m., introducing what we call a Synthetic Media Space — a hybrid environment animated by a playlist of AI-generated music videos inspired by German techno. This sonic landscape channels the forces of the “Dark Enlightenment,” techno republics, and other vectors of otherness. The music drives the lights, rhythms, and atmospheres of the room, creating a strange, ironic techno party — a site for embodied reflection, dancing, and spontaneous interventions by the artists and audience.
Throughout the festival (October 1–5, 2025), the installation will feature moments of activation, including:
- Real-time interactions with AI chatbots
- Live generative imagery using Stable Diffusion and streaming models
- Low-latency AI companions for speculative conversations across temporalities
- Participatory performances inviting visitors to sense, move, and think with the shifting tectonics of otherness
Pangea in Latent Space: The Tectonics of Otherness proposes an ever-changing field of inquiry — a space of migration, speculation, and embodied cognition, where the ground itself moves, and we move with it.
Apps and interfaces of Pangea in Latent Space The Tectonics of Otherness