Expanded cinema performance for two 16mm film projectors with optical sounds and one amplified trumpet with a loop station. Dual projection. Duration: 40min
DIsINCARNATE (I-III) is a failed attempt to reconstruct a human being by assembling its parts. As the human figure gradually recedes, qualities associated with a living subject (imitation, response, adaptation) begin to migrate towards film, sound and projector, in a kind of transfusion of life from the represented body to the medium that carries it.explore ways to actualise the subject of my performance within the very material of the film I’m projecting.
Through this transfer, the work questions what we recognise as evidence of an inner life. Behaviour begins to suggest intention, while the distinction between a living subject and a system capable of imitating its behaviour becomes increasingly uncertain.
The reconstruction is built from different kinds of evidence. The projected body offers a recognisable human form, while fragments of skin and hair incorporated into the film provide physical traces of a body that once existed outside the image. These material traces become increasingly present as the performance progresses and the human figure begins to disappear. They confirm the presence of a body without being able to restore the subject that inhabited it.
At the same time, another kind of evidence emerges through behaviour. The optical soundtrack gradually changes from noise-based approximations of human speech towards sounds that imitate the live trumpet and elements of the surrounding sonic environment. The film appears to observe, respond and absorb characteristics from what happens around it. The location of the subject becomes increasingly uncertain: what begins as an attempt to construct a human figure gradually extends across image, film material, sound and projection apparatus.
The work’s relation to particle physics originates in the image of human traces left on surfaces after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The destruction of the body alongside the persistence of its imprint led me towards a scale at which the apparently solid and singular body can be reconsidered as matter. Particle physics, and particularly the idea of superposition, became a conceptual model for imagining existence beyond one stable state. Through multiple exposure, the human figure splits, overlaps and occupies simultaneous possibilities, gradually losing the singular form through which it was first recognised.
Selected performances:
International Film Festival Rotterdam for the IFFR Art Directions section (2026)
InScience Film Festival Nijmegen (2026)
Stuttgarter Filmwinter festival (2026)
Zelluloid Festival Berlin (2025) (as DISINCARNATE)
Ubik Rotterdam 2024 (as work in progress)
DIsINCARNATE was developed during the SPECTRAL residency, in collaboration with Filmwerkplaats and WORM Rotterdam. Please contact me if you would like to view the video documentation.
Trumpet / acting – Igor Iofe:
Concept / film / music/ staging / projections — Cinzia Nistico
