AUTOMATIC GALLERY
"ROTOR" - Performative Automatic System (PAS).
The figure is a body of gesture partially closed by function, partially released from the fiction.
In the border area between performance and installation I set up my action passing through two different phases. In the first part, starting from an empty stage, in front of the audience I build a facility, a sophisticated electro-mechanical kinetic mechanism. The second part takes place in the final 5 minutes and show the final merger between my body and the existing structure. Thus formed a hybrid body moving under the rules of automation, but is immersed in a fictional world.
Venelin Shurelov (SubHuman Theatre) – Author, Technical realization, Performance
Borislav Tonev (Bucky) - Mechanics
Premiere as Installation Art Work:
16.04.2016 – Mobile Studios Project in Radomir, Ihtiman, Samokov
Premiere as Performance:
03.07.2016 – "Small Season Fest", Theatre Laboratory SFUMATO, Sofia (Bulgaria)
The project is presented at:
29.09.2016 – "Night of Museums", Plovdiv (Bulgaria)
05.11.2016 – “Intermedia Body”, ARS Electronica Center, Linz (Austria)
14.11.2016 – "DNA - Center for Contemporary Dance and Performance" in the frame of “ACT” Independent Theatre Festival, Sofia (Bulgaria)
06.06.2017 – "Varna Summer" International Theatre Festival, Varna (Bulgaria)
21.04.2018 – NOVA Fest, Bucharest, Rumania
Nominated for the Icarus Prize 2017 in the category “Contemporary Dance and Performance”
Venelin Shurelov (b. 1977, Bulgaria) is a visual artist, scenographer, researcher, and Professor at the National Academy of Art, Sofia.
He holds a PhD in Scenography (2009) from the National Academy of Art. He is co-founder and Professor of the MA programme Digital Arts (2008–), co-founder, curator and technical director of DA Fest – International Digital Art Festival (2009–), and co-founder of DA LAB Foundation (2018–). Founder of Automatic Gallery (2025–). He founded SubHuman Theatre (2004–) and was a member of the international art collective Via Pontica (2002–2005).
His artistic practice spans interactive installation, performance, kinetic sculpture, digital media, and scenography. Selected works include Drawing Machine (2005), Fantomat (2008), Orthoman (2009), Tabula Rasa (2010), Man Ex Machina (2011), Shooting Gallery (2012), Rotor (2016), presented at Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Post-Everything (Towson University, USA, 2016), and One Person – Urban Electronic Corpus (2020).
His work investigates the relationships between human and technological systems, automation, performativity, and contemporary mythologies. Combining physical objects, algorithmic processes, interactive environments, and speculative narratives, his projects explore the shifting boundaries between the human, the technological, and the institutional.
Shurelov has presented numerous solo exhibitions, performances, stage designs, and collaborative projects across Europe and the United States. His work has received multiple awards in both contemporary art and theatre.
He lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria.