CAN I PET THAT DAWG?!, Paco Ladrón de Guevara & Irene Molina
Space: GAVIOTA
Dates:11 April, 2026
Schedule: 19:30-21:30
Irene Molina and Paco Ladrón de Guevara, together with twerkas_ip, present the piece CAN I PET THAT DAWG?!, a performance that focuses on networks of care and contemporary power dynamics, questioning how we construct affection and care within a postmodern context where technology seems to offer solutions to all our problems.
On stage, Paco Ladrón de Guevara interacts with twerkas_ip (a Unitree Go2 model quadruped robot), in a choreography that reveals the false illusion of control and domestication between human beings and what they have created—blurring the line of who is actually in charge. From a young age, electronic devices such as Tamagotchis, Nintendogs, or Reborn dolls have been presented to us as distractions, though we did not fully grasp to what extent. While we believed we were caring for a device, these same devices concealed the absence of care we ourselves were not receiving. We thought we were domesticating the machine, yet it is used to domesticate us, compensating for the deficiencies of a posthuman society that believes only in science and has forgotten patience.
Technological advances are largely the result of investment in tools of war, later adapted for everyday use. These weapons of destruction—such as drones or robotic dogs—have been domesticated and aestheticized in order to continue fulfilling their function: controlling the population, while making us believe we are in control. *My time is mine*, I say as I look at the clock and rush toward the next mission. Within this trap of control and belief, the agents of this performance—Paco, Irene, and Twerkas—become entangled, blurring the boundaries of affective dynamics to question who controls whom in this unresponsive, cold, and aggressive postmodernity… but make it cute.
Text by Inés Alonso Jarabo
Project co-financed by the European Union through DIGITAL on STAGE.