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video performance
A video performance, also called performance for video, is a performance which is solely performed to be recorded, with no live public. The final exhibited work is the video recording of the action.
dive (mergulho)
Year: 2023
Duration: 1’45" (looped)
Action and concept: Hifa Cybe and Maurizio Mancioli
Installation: “Acquabox” by Maurizio Mancioli
In this video installation in the format of a long vertical strip, a woman and a man, dressed, slowly sink into dark waters, until they disappear.
The work invites the viewer to reflect on the correlation between diving into the waters and diving into the unconscious, exploring the hidden layers of the human psyche and confronting one's own inner abysses. Such a process of immersion, within ourselves, would be the primordial condition for developing an ecological consciousness, as well as the ability to connect with the world around us. Water, a fundamental element for life, evokes the idea of a return to our primordial roots. The act of sinking into the waters can be interpreted as a search for a world free from tensions. The ocean, as a silent refuge, becomes a place where it seems possible to suspend time and quiet the mind.
Dive was exhibited at CCBB (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil), Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil.
sonar
Year: 2023
Duration: 1’12"
Concept: Maurizio Mancioli
Action: Lillian Hastings and Maurizio Mancioli
Video/editing: Maurizio Mancioli
Installation: “Acquabox” by Maurizio Mancioli
A man and a woman are seated underwater, in apnea, facing each other. The woman blows air bubble rings that gently dissolve on the man’s face.
SONAR invites viewers to reflect upon the intricate dynamics of human connection and communication, as well as the blurred lines between reality and fiction in contemporary relationships.
Immersed in an underwater environment, both performers engage in a breath-holding state, evoking a palpable sense of vulnerability and fragility.
The woman's act of blowing air bubble rings, delicately dissolving on the man's face, suggests an endeavor to explore intimacy, to connect. The gentle dissolution of these bubbles suggests the transient essence of communication, shedding light on the inherent challenges of genuine understanding.
Sonar was selected in the POSVERSO Biennial (Junín, Argentina)
oxygen
Year: 2021
Duration: 4’24"
Concept: Maurizio Mancioli
Action: Lillian Hastings and Maurizio Mancioli
Installation: “Acquabox” by Maurizio Mancioli
The action is inspired by scuba diving rescue protocols, in which a diver shares his regulator with another diver who is out of air. This performance evokes various elements of its times: the confinement; a sickness that affects breathing and the dispute for oxygen in hospitals; the need for discipline and courtesy necessary for people to survive in the same place. It also suggests, through the density of water, a sensation of time suspension.
Oxygen was exhibited at the16th FONLAD Festival (Coimbra, Portugal), at Mostra Museu, (São Paulo, Brazil), and at Le Lieu - Centre em Art Actuel (Québec, Canada).
swim in nothing (nada no nada)
Year: 2020
Duration: 1’
Concept, action and images: Maurizio Mancioli
A man swims erratically underwater in apnea, in a sort of capsule, with the word “nada” (meaning “nothing”, but also “swim”) projected on his body. The work aims at incorporating and transmitting the suffocation, the disorientation, the disillusion, the state of isolation, and the state of suspension endured during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Swin in Nothing was exhibited at the Hotel Dada gallery (Junín, Argentina).
digital manipulation
In collaboration with Chris Malta and Lillian Hastings
Year: 2019
Duration: 9’10" (looped)
Concept: Chris Malta and Maurizio Mancioli
Direction: Maurizio Mancioli
Action: Lillian Hastings and Maurizio Mancioli
Costume design: Chris Malta
n this performance for video, that intentionally resembles a digital animation, a body seems to be rotating in space, inside a capsule; it is in fact underwater and (literally) manipulated by another person (the hands are slightly visible on the head). The intention here is to explore the frontier of analogic (tangible) and digital (virtual) protocols, and reflect upon its analogies in contemporary relationships.
into the void
Year: 2017
Duration: 6’
Concept: Ana Montenegro and Maurizio Mancioli
Action: Ana Montenegro
Soundtrack: Maurizio Mancioli
buoy
Year: 2014
Duration: 21’
Concept: Ana Montenegro and Maurizio Mancioli
Action: Ana Montenegro
Buoy started as performance for camera, then it also became a live public performance.
The performance confronts the viewer with an illusory, paradoxical, and senseless image (a nearly static body inside a lifebuoy, floating on water, trapped in a capsule, a space of confinement). It serves as an allegory of human fragility, but also, in a political sense, a reflection on the issue of displacement, immigration, alluding to the desperate situation of countless bodies condemned to a non-place, to a non-life.
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