Distorted Constellations: Afrofuturist Landscapes, Neurodivergent Possibilities, and Art as Science Playground
Nwando Ebizie

Distorted Constellations is a neurophenomenological approach to the creation of a ritual space and actions. It houses a living, breathing, symbolic representation of the artist’s inner and outer states: her brain and her perception (perception in this case means the overview of the vast array of sensory information gathered by the brain and projected out onto reality). Actions are animated by a mythopoetic reimagining of neural pathways relating to specific emotional states selected for a neurodivergent ritual. Inspired by research with neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and Afro-diasporic ritual practitioners, the immersive multi-sensory space explores the wildish woman, depression, anger, loss, and the communication between the thinking prefrontal cortex and emotional limbic system.

Nwando Ebizie is a multidisciplinary artist with an international focus whose work converges around performance art personas, experimental theatre, neuroscience, music, and Afro-iasporic ritualistic dance. Carving out her own particular strand of Afrofuturism, she combines research into the neuroscience of perception (inspired by her own neurodiversity) and an obsession with science fiction with a ritualistic live art practice. She has curated happenings for Wellcome Collection and released records supported by Gilles Peterson. She has performed in Tokyo (Bonobo), Rio de Janeiro (Tempo Festival), Berlin (Chalet), Latvia (Concert Hall Baltais Fligelis), Zurich (Blok Club), and across the United Kingdom including Manchester (HOMEmcr) and London (from the Barbican Centre to Southbank Centre). Her most recent project, her first solo exhibition, took the form of a ritual immersive tech landscape as part of HOMEmcr’s Push Festival at Caustic Coastal.