YOU BETTER (DON’T) MOVE

The performative-interactive installation YOU BETTER (DON’T) MOVE creates a space where participants actively shape their environment through movement and reflect on the relationships between nature, humans, and technology. They experience how data can be translated into an immersive digital landscape and what role they play as active agents within this system.

The installation invites the audience to see themselves as part of a hybrid environment and to question the impact of their actions in a constantly changing world.

YOU BETTER (DON’T) MOVE captures this change and transfers it into a digital dimension: an artificial, ever-changing world where nature and technology merge. The artwork questions the idea of "nature" in the digital age. While traditional landscapes are shaped by physical processes, new forms of nature arise in virtual spaces — algorithmically generated ecosystems, procedurally growing plant worlds, and simulated water movements.

Die Ruhrgebieterinnen is an artist collective founded in 2021 by Vesela Stanoeva and Elisabeth Drache. They specialize in digital performance. They collaborate with multidisciplinary artists from the Ruhr region and create an intersectional feminist network at the heart of the Ruhr area.

The central question the collective asks is: How should the future look today, in 30 or 100 years? Against this background, the Ruhrgebieterinnen develop interactive and immersive concepts for the planet and the people who live on it. They explore new forms of encounters and differences as well as the potential of diversity in various performative and installation projects.

Vesela Stanoeva
is a digital artist, scenographer, and curator. She creates speculative worlds in immersive installations and performances using moving images, CGI, gaming software, installations, as well as virtual and augmented reality. Vesela was a fellow at the Academy for Theatre and Digitality in Dortmund in 2020 and 2021. In 2021, she co-curated the immersive and interactive exhibition Welcome to Paradise at NRW-Forum Düsseldorf. Her work has been shown in many museums, including the Museum of Light Art in Unna and NRW-Forum Düsseldorf. Additionally, her pieces have been featured at festivals such as VRHAM!, Next-Level Festival for Games, and NEW NOW Festival for Digital Arts. In 2021, she co-founded the artist collective Ruhrgebieterinnen.

Elisabeth Drache
is a 3D artist from the Ruhr region. She visualizes complex content through 3D animations, videos, interactive models, and immersive installations.