Livid Living Corpse
HD-Video, Sound, Colour, 29:23 Min., 2017
The body of a human falls into the sand. They are covered in blood. They are crying. They are sobbing. They are starring blankly into the camera or beyond. They are dying.
A human transforms into a vampire. This mythological creature, condemned to evolution like changes of body and soul, acts as psychological projection target, role model and metaphor since centuries. The vampire becomes the visualization of a paradox, she is human and the ultimate Other at the same time. As her transformation can stand for bodily and hormonal shifts during puberty, she at the same time becomes an icon for all outsiders, who can’t find their place in heteronormative society. Livid Living Corpse analyzes this character in flux and explores its feminist potentials.
The vampire in Livid Living Corpse is played by three different performers: An actress (Vanessa Loibl), an artist (Jonathan Penca) and a teenage girl (Tassja Hörr). In their role as outcast they live through different phases of their new identity, e.g. becoming animal, becoming an icon, politicization, identity crisis, self destruction and acceptance. With increasing immortality thus inhumanity the character’s questions are becoming more philosophical and existentialistic. The relationship between perpetrator and victim, questions about guilt, agency and fate are being twisted and turned. The juxtaposition of the different approaches and technical capabilities of the three performers deepen matters of identity as performance, belonging and becoming part of a group and the act of embodiment per se. The subtle exposing of staging and productions methods underlines the playing of a role, while confronting the seeming compliance with visual conventions of the horror film genre Giallo.
Theoretical basis to Livid Living Corpse is the Master thesis by Rosanna Graf “A Reader for Vampires, Cyborgs and Other Ultimate Others – Eine Untersuchung der filmischen und literarischen Darstellung von Vampiren und Andersartigen im Hinblick auf ihre feministischen und posthumanen Potentiale (Analysis of cinematic and literary representations of vampires and the Other and their feminist and posthuman potentials)” from 2017.
Installation View, Kunsthaus Hamburg, 2019 (Photo: Hayo Heye)
Written, directed and edited by Rosanna Graf
Vampiress: Tassja Hörr, Vanessa Loibl, Jonathan Penca
Camera: Jannik Schneider
Costume: Rosanna Graf, Atefa Omar
H&M: Atefa Omar
Sound Design: Konrad Wehrmeister
Boom Operators: Laurens Bauer, Sebastian Muxfeldt, Natalia Sidor
Sound Mixing: Sebastian Muxfeldt
Livid Living Corpse
HD-Video, Sound, Colour, 29:23 Min., 2017
The body of a human falls into the sand. They are covered in blood. They are crying. They are sobbing. They are starring blankly into the camera or beyond. They are dying.
A human transforms into a vampire. This mythological creature, condemned to evolution like changes of body and soul, acts as psychological projection target, role model and metaphor since centuries. The vampire becomes the visualization of a paradox, she is human and the ultimate Other at the same time. As her transformation can stand for bodily and hormonal shifts during puberty, she at the same time becomes an icon for all outsiders, who can’t find their place in heteronormative society. Livid Living Corpse analyzes this character in flux and explores its feminist potentials.
The vampire in Livid Living Corpse is played by three different performers: An actress (Vanessa Loibl), an artist (Jonathan Penca) and a teenage girl (Tassja Hörr). In their role as outcast they live through different phases of their new identity, e.g. becoming animal, becoming an icon, politicization, identity crisis, self destruction and acceptance. With increasing immortality thus inhumanity the character’s questions are becoming more philosophical and existentialistic. The relationship between perpetrator and victim, questions about guilt, agency and fate are being twisted and turned. The juxtaposition of the different approaches and technical capabilities of the three performers deepen matters of identity as performance, belonging and becoming part of a group and the act of embodiment per se. The subtle exposing of staging and productions methods underlines the playing of a role, while confronting the seeming compliance with visual conventions of the horror film genre Giallo.
Theoretical basis to Livid Living Corpse is the Master thesis by Rosanna Graf "A Reader for Vampires, Cyborgs and Other Ultimate Others – Eine Untersuchung der filmischen und literarischen Darstellung von Vampiren und Andersartigen im Hinblick auf ihre feministischen und posthumanen Potentiale (Analysis of cinematic and literary representations of vampires and the Other and their feminist and posthuman potentials)" from 2017.
Installation view, "Nominees", Kunsthaus Hamburg, 2019 (Photo: Hayo Heye)
Written, directed and edited by Rosanna Graf
Vampiress: Tassja Hörr, Vanessa Loibl, Jonathan Penca
Camera: Jannik Schneider
Costume: Rosanna Graf, Atefa Omar
H&M: Atefa Omar
Sound Design: Konrad Wehrmeister
Boom Operators: Laurens Bauer, Sebastian Muxfeldt, Natalia Sidor
Sound Mixing: Sebastian Muxfeldt