2024 Microbiological safety cabinet, digital clock (900 sec. countdown), loop station, lab coats, “The Puppet’s Tragedy” perfume First presented: to be defined Performers: Nicole Barbieri + others Iterations: second version (first version 2023/24, artQ13 Rome)
Four performers in white lab coats stand with their backs to the audience, in front of a microbiological safety cabinet. The temporal structure is a 900-second loop. With each cycle gestures, sounds, fragments of dialogue and information accumulate. As the repetitions go on, music and voices overlap until they become indistinguishable. The movements follow laboratory procedures — handling, measuring, note-taking — which repeat and deform with each new cycle. Nicole Barbieri performs bodily contortions synchronised with the time loops. Gradually the figures in lab coats turn into Neapolitan Guarattelle, taking on their rigid postures, jerky movements and altered proportions. The transformation happens by accumulation, without interruption. A perfume produced specifically for the performance is diffused in the room. The smell joins the sounds, gestures and images as a further element present in the space.
Retroactive regime. The string is the time loop: each 900-second cycle deposits a layer on the previous one. The structure does not wear out — it thickens. The bodies pass through the same sequence and come out of it more deformed each time. Here the string accumulates matter and the circuit never runs down.
Photo: Cristina Crippa Produced by artQ13.