Naomi Xila-Xulis

NAOMI XILA-XULIS
Media artist and performer working at the intersection of sound art, electronics, body, machine, space, journeys, survival, new music, minimal music, and women in art.

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PROJECTS/ PERFORMANCES/EXPERIMENTS

TERRA NULLIUS (2023)

Impressum

SELECTED PROJECTS

Germany

AULA UNTER STROM (2026)

Site-specific Sound Installation
27,02x10,0x1,5m
Sommerrundgang 2026
Assembly Hall, Kunstakademie Duesseldorf, Germany
in Collaboration with Audio Programmer Miguel Moreno (Mexico)
In AULA UNTER STROM, 34 sound bodies are installed where the audience would normally sit. The sound is generated in real time from eight Euclidean rhythms – a mathematical principle that dates back to Euclid (c. 300 BCE) and was applied to rhythm in 2004 by computer scientist Godfried Toussaint. The mathematical structure links the individual rhythms into a shared sonic image. The sounds are partly random, partly algorithmically generated; some frequencies are also physically perceptible through vibration. In addition, sensors placed in the room register distance, contact, vibration, and decibel levels. This data feeds into the soundscape as its own sound texture – human, machine, and space thereby stand in a triangular relationship.

AULA UNTER STROM was awarded the postgraduate scholarship of the Kunstakademie Duesseldorf in July 2026.

For the request, video documentation (password-protected) is available. Please contact me if you would like to watch and listen to it.

CYBIRTH (2026)

Sound Performance
Approx. 10 min.
Heimspiel
Sammlung Philara, DUEsseldorf, Germany
(Collection of Contemporary Art)
with technical assistance by Tomás Müller (Germany/Chile)

With CYBIRTH, Naomi Xila-Xulis presents a site-specific performance that negotiates the organic and the mechanical. Through an acoustic journey into the interior, exposure becomes audible. Bodily processes are extracted and translated into a sonic architecture that is transferred into the physical space of the viewers.

A Super 8 film based on it is currently in production.

ESCARABAJO (2026)

CYBER-INSTALLATION
Dimensions variable
(Un)disciplined Body / With Dakić-Class
Kunstakademie Duesseldorf, Germany

The rhinoceros beetle used for the installation ESCARABAJO was found by the artist in 2023 in Santa Elena, Colombia. Set within a ceramic landscape, the creature is given a “second life” through electronic modification: motorized, it moves endlessly backwards in a circle—seemingly with no way out.

ESCARABAJO will be exhibited from September 25 as part of the 80th International Art Prize at the Kunstmuseum Solingen.

RADAR II Ventilator (2025)

Interactive Sound Object
Dimensions variable
(C)ALL FEMALE
LTK4, Koeln, Germany

The interactive installation RADAR II The fan moves within the tension between chaos (entropy) and control. As a kinetic sound object, it responds to the presence and movements of people in the space through two radar sensors. Although both sensors respond to the same stimulus, they produce differentiated sonic responses due to their different programming.

RADAR (2025)

Sound Performance
Duration variable
Drive My Car / With Dakić-Class
Kunstakademie Duesseldorf, Germany
With the support of mentor Tobias Grewenig

The artist uses radar technology to distinguish between living agents and inanimate objects. A micro-display on the body counts the number of encounters, while an accompanying soundscape of radar noises acoustically marks the space. The technological costume is complemented by an AI-generated ox tail that snakes across the floor as a moving projection. The performance explores communication between humans and machines.

RADAR was awarded the Deutschlandstipendium (BMBF) in February 2025.

ISHIKARI EXPRESS -
いしかり速い (2025)

Video
8’16’’
Drive My Car Playlist / With Dakić-Class
Julia Stoschek Foundation, Duesseldorf, Germany

Based on a found-footage film recording that has been heavily altered both visually and acoustically, いしかり速い – ISHIKARI EXPRESS invites the viewer on an imaginary ship journey to いしかり (Ishikari).The experimental narrative unfolds through multifaceted soundscapes, creating a voyage between dream and nightmare. Birds from this and other worlds, machines, people, as well as synthetic and recorded sounds and melodies intertwine to form an immersive sonic collage.

For the request, video (password-protected) is available. Please contact me if you would like to watch and listen to it.

ÜBER LEBEN HEUTE
VOR MORGEN (2024-2025)

Happening
Duration variable
City Scapes & Other Tales / with Dakić-Class / Common Struggles
Kunstakademie Duesseldorf, Germany / Freies Werkstatt Theater Koeln, Germany

The Freie Pedalgemeinschaft is a cycling community whose aim is to survive without money for varying periods of time, relying instead on social support, tolerance, and solidarity. In ÜBER LEBEN HEUTE VOR MORGEN, the community camps along its cycling routes. Food and provisions are supplied by various sponsors. During their most recent action, they received enough food and drinks to organize an outdoor gathering with around 30 other people, featuring food and drink, at the Freies Werkstatt Theater in Cologne.

LEERES RAUSCHEN (2024-2026)

Performance
Approx. 10 Min.
ROM. ROM? ROM! / With Dakić-Class
Goethe-Institute, Rome, Italy / Kunstakademie Duesseldorf, Germany / Brunhilde Moll Foundation, Duesseldorf, Germany

In the performance LEERES RAUSCHEN, the artist, completely enveloped in a sleeping bag, moves slowly and laborously through the respective exhibition space, navigating stairs, passageway, and spatial obstacles. The restricted mobility transforms simple actions into a state of exception, rendering moments of protection, uncertainly, and vulnerability visible. Between stillness and movement, the work explores forms of travel, survival, and orientation, as well as the body’s existential positioning within space.

© Nicole Kostezki

EGOLINE (2024)

Video (5-Channel)
25’
CIRCULATING COPIES / With Dakić-Class
Imai - Intermedia Art Institute, Duesseldorf
In Collaboration with Tara Olsen

EGOLINE explores the representation of bodies and nudity within the tension between public and private space. The video performance takes place in a tanning booth at a solarium. Performers and staff members enter the space one after another to perform everyday, almost ritualized actions such as tanning, applying cream, cleaning, or symbolically burning the skin.

ZELTEN IN DER VILLA MASSIMO (AGGIORNATO) (2023-2026)

multimedia Installation
Loop
ROM. ROM? ROMA! / With Dakić-Class
Brunhilde Moll Stiftung, DUesseldorf (2026); Goethe-Institut, Rome (2024); Asphalt-Festival, DUesseldorf (2023)

In the work ZELTEN IN DER VILLA MASSIMO (AGGIORNATO) Naomi Xila-Xulis engages with questions of travel, access, and belonging. The point of departure is a performative action in which the artist camped for one week in the garden of Villa Massimo in Rome. The temorary appropiation of this site, significant to the German art and cultural landscape, renders mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion perceptible. The documentary traces of the action are reconfigured into an installation at exhibition venue, responding to the respective spatial conditions.