ARE YOU AN NPC?-ACT BASEL PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL DER SCHWEIZER KUNSTHOCHSCHULEN, KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL

As part of ACT Basel — Performance Festival der Schweizer Kunsthochschulen — Lux Valladolid presented Are you an NPC?. The performance subtly yet precisely integrated into the festival's environment, mirroring the way digital technologies infiltrate everyday life: unannounced, without overtly disrupting the rhythm, yet reconfiguring the dynamics of the institutional space from within. As with digital technologies, the work asked neither permission nor forgiveness: it seeped in uninvited, interrupting the museum in a nearly imperceptible yet decisive way.

The intervention unfolded in a context rich with layers: the festival took place at the Kunstmuseum Basel and intertwined with an exhibition dedicated to Italian artist Medardo Rosso, whose practice revolves around sculpture as gesture, process, and temporality. From this convergence, Valladolid poses the question: what does it mean to intervene in the city of performance, within a performance festival, while the museum invites us to read sculpture through a performative lens? Inspired by a phrase from Rosso — "Nothing is material in space" — the artist pushes the boundaries of institutional action and reflects on the place of performance within these frameworks.

The work stems from Are You an NPC?, an ongoing research project developed during her residency at Atelier Mondial (Basel), as part of the Pro Helvetia South America Residency Programme (AiR 2025). The project centers around the figure of the NPC (Non-Playable Character), a secondary character in video games limited to repeating preset behaviors without agency or deviation. Through this archetype, the artist explores ways of inhabiting public and institutional spaces through presences that do not demand attention but subtly and deliberately alter the environment.

The work is structured around a central question: what happens when something does not seek to be seen, yet still produces a fissure in collective perception? It delves into the tension between the visible and the unnoticed, echoing the way digital devices operate on the body and behavior without declaring their influence.