LA CHOSE INCONNUE (ÉCRAN HABITÉ) / THE UNKNOWN (ÉCRAN HABITÉ) [ 2025 ]
in collaborazione con / in collaboration with Tilla Giro
Video-proiezione su schermo animato, testi, suono e voci digitali, tre performer. Montaggio video, schermo e azione: Tilla Giro. Testi, voci e montaggio sonoro: Pasquale Polidori / Video projection on animated screen, texts, digital sound and voices, three performers. Video editing, screen and action: Tilla Giro. Texts, voices and soundtrack editing: Pasquale Polidori
Un film di fantascienza viene proiettato su uno schermo-scultura animato dalla presenza di un piccolo gruppo di performer. Lo schermo distorce le immagini, conferendo loro l’aspetto di un corpo in movimento, simile alla forma di un animale. In questa fantasia di un cinema vivente, un coro di voci pone domande che rimangono senza risposta. La performance si è svolta in occasione della mostra Angry Textile, Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte, Völklingen, 2025, a cura di prof. Georg Winter, promossa da Europäischen Zentrums für Promenadologie Völklingen, Spekulativen Nomad*innen, HBKsaar, Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte. Performer: Amrei Treis, Thelio Rabin-Laguens, Samuele Lascialfari.
A science fiction film is projected onto a sculptural screen animated by the presence of a small group of performers. The screen distorts the images, giving them the appearance of a moving body, similar to the shape of an animal. In this fantasy of a living cinema, a chorus of voices asks questions that remain unanswered. The performance took place during the exhibition Angry Textile, Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte, Völklingen, 2025, curated by Prof. Georg Winter and promoted by the Europäischen Zentrums für Promenadologie Völklingen, Spekulativen Nomad*innen, HBKsaar, and Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte. Performers: Amrei Treis, Thelio Rabin-Laguens, Samuele Lascialfari.







The unknown: twelve for three answers to the same question [chorus 1] What is it? [A] It is an open window through which you can see reality losing its appearance. [B] It could also be a mistake that is luckily inscribed in the social code. [C] I think it is a symptom of the ultimate break between form and content. [chorus 2] What is it? [B] It is a bouquet of flowers on a table in the afternoon atmosphere.[C] Actually, it seems to be the model of a never-ending semantic openness.[A] In any case, it is an ideological construct that is extinguished by its own generative reason. [chorus 3] What is it?[C] It is an open-air theatre, without an audience, at night, by the light of the full moon.[A] I think it is the oscillation between the desire and the suppression of the object.[B] It is certainly the indication of a primordial moment of expression. [chorus 4] What is it? [A] It is the decentralisation of the subject. [B] What can I say? I say that it is a demonstration of the groundlessness of the narrative impulse. [C] No, you are wrong, it is the shocking objective limit of the unconscious of the image. [chorus 5] What is it? [B] It is a spring rain that makes the landscape shine. [C] I believe it is the inescapable violence of the act of meaning. [A] I rather think it is a method for the exposing of neuroses. [chorus 6] What is it? [C] It is a creation shaped by the nature of the medium. [A] Or it is an experiment in measuring space out of feelings. [B] Or more simply it is the nocturnal migration of definitions. [chorus 7] What is it? [A] It is the struggle of bodies against gravity. [B] No. I think it is the temptation of the elsewhere that turns into the melancholy of the everywhere. [C] We can say that it is the obsession with a boundary that imprisons every single thing in its concrete existence. [chorus 8] What is it? [B] It is almost certainly about the balance of structures within an abstract composition. [C] I am not sure. I think it is the metamorphosis of semantic value into economic value. [A] Or it could be the hallucination of the sign generated by the transcendence of the physical gesture. [chorus 9] What is it? [C] It is the very concept of presence assumed as the pure material of the work of art. [A] Not really. It is the expulsion of all concept from the material of the work of art. [B] You are both wrong. I tell you it is the swinging of the tongue in the mouth when we reject the work of art. [chorus 10] What is it? [A] It is the tenderness of practical life constituting the solution to all political clashes. [B] Or it could be the unbearable revelation of a disturbing enigma. [C] Far from it. It is the inexorable debt of realism that weighs upon our destiny. [chorus 11] What is it? [B] It is a sunset over the sea. [C] No. I think it is a sunset over the fields. [A] I say it is the reversibility of aesthetic experience from cognitive process to instinctual obedience. [chorus 12] What is it? [C] It is the illogical image of an upside-down sky. [A] I say it is a dancing body that does not conceive any vertigo. [B] In my opinion it is an ancestral force that acts as a function of a corruption of language.
[Répétition pour un écran habité : (la) chose inconnue, Tilla Giro & Pasquale Polidori for the Angry Textile exhibition 29 August 14 October 2025 UNESCO World Heritage Völklinger Hütte]
Fotografie: Georg Winter, Camilo Barrero, Pasquale Polidori.