UNICA (2022)
HD, 36min, sound
UNICA refers to the writer and artist Unica Zürn (1916 - 1970), whose illustrated text The House of Illnesses (1958) figures her body and her institutionalisation as one formation. Rethinking contemporary forms of immersion in simulated worlds through Zürn’s body-building, UNICA sets in motion overlapping references to post-apocalyptic computer games, drawings, and dreams. The latent presence of an unnamed catastrophe is repeatedly evoked by the protagonists, an artist and a performer, who move between an atelier, a motion-capture studio and a forested hill on the outskirts of Berlin made from the debris of Second World War ruins. By merging computational with quasi-archaeological procedures, UNICA calls attention to the artificial naturalisation of historical and ongoing violence, and the conditions of possibility for its decoding and disruption.
CREDITS
Gabrielle Scharnitzky (UNICA A)
Grete Gehrke (UNICA B)
Written and directed by Blaise Kirschner
Cinematography - Julian Moser
Camera Assistant - Luisa Knight
Editing - Katharina Voß
Dramaturgy & Choreography - Zee Hartmann
Production design - Cleo Niemeyer-Nasser
Hair & Make-up - Kathrin Hieselmayr
Sound - Katharina Voß
Sound design & Soundtrack - Wibke Tiarks
Sound Mix - Kostas Flylaktidis
Colour Grading - Julian Moser
Motion Capture - OnPoint Studios
Animation - Diana Gradinaru
Production - Blaise Kirschner
Production Assistant - Lena Weißmüller
Commissioned and co-produced by Fluentum
Curators: Junia Thiede and Dennis Brzek
