Simonetta Vespuccci (portrait, détails et perspective)

Vociferous escapees from the Renaissance, seven characters act out fantasies that suggest representations of ‘the self’. They are in a space squared in with cameras that enlarge their gestures to the point of obscenity.

They make an entrance onto today’s stage, out of place, adorned in the accoutrements of yesterday. Contemporaries of Siminetta Vespucci, they take up her poses, hoping to give themselves substance. But the gestures are stiff, the memory is faulty and their world is menaced by the unknown: « Where are we and what will remain if us? Who can see us from over there? » ask these men and women, fully exposed to our gaze.

As if needing a reference point, they perch, frozen, on tiny islands that emerge from the empty stage. They replay the scenes that their bodies have kept as souvenirs, that their memories have fantasized: seduction, combat, sermons, executions, parades, chants…with which other codes, other fantasies…our own…mix.

History’s debris, fragments of myths, snippets of words, all clashing together with the outlandish styles and other epochs to form a strange madness on the square of the stage. The cameras capture their expressions, their manoeuvres and the absurd and comical manner with which these characters hold on tight to themselves and each other.

Thus, through duel detail, with changing angles and multiple perspectives, the reality of what we see becomes dizzying…A way of losing ourselves in the shattering of meaning that then renders them naked, we identify with the humour and energy they demonstrate, despite all, in simply existing.