"Paradoxal Reactions" was developed as part of the KYRT project, which marks the completion of the Undergraduate in Design — Communication at ESAD. The project explores the relationship between pleasure and pain, rejecting the idea that they are opposing experiences and demonstrating how these two states coexist, influence one another and form part of the same human experience.

Drawing on contemporary neuroscience, which shows that pleasure and pain share the same neural circuits, the project is structured as a journey of increasing intensity. Moving from everyday experience – through examples such as sport, eating spicy food, ice baths or horror films – it progresses to historical, cultural and artistic references, including the work songs collected by Michel Giacometti, religious mortification of the flesh, and the work of artists such as Marina Abramović, Marco Fusinato and Stig Dagerman. The project also features an interview with the performance artist Xana Novais, whose practice places the body at the centre of creation and of exploring the boundaries between pleasure, pain and control.