Super 8 video, black and white film reversal 2’56’’, 2023

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Rituale Numero Uno is a performative action.
It is the first chapter of a cycle of four. It was taped with a Super 8 camera at slow-motion speed. The length of the video is 2 minutes and 56 seconds, the complete duration of a cartridge at 36 fps. The action is repeated without variation throughout the entire video. The video shows the throwing of a white shirt that seems to come alive and suspend in the air for a few moments and immediately falls back motionless. The object, with each throw, acquires different forms and reaches immediate and disruptive plasticity that it loses within seconds. It is an impossible struggle against the force of gravity, the impossibility of inanimate objects that surround us to live actively but are loaded with memories that live in us. The audio track is part of the chance discovery of a set of tapes and a tape recorder, on which this tune was recorded and sung by the artist’s father to test the operation of the machine. Successively it has been distorted to fit the video’s length, which enriches the performance with an alienating and allusive component.