In SWIM BABY SWIM, Papetti raises questions about live presence and representation through the medium of film, that is, she... Read More
In SWIM BABY SWIM, Papetti raises questions about live presence and representation through the medium of film, that is, she questioned how this medium stands problematically in relation to live performance, and ''self'' representation. She challenged her self by deciding to work in great part unscripted. Improvising the plot on location based on the effects of an encounter with a camera-man. This was someone that she did not know, a stranger found by proxy that without any previous knowledge about her work or intentions occupied this capacity.
At the beginning, the camera-man mostly followed Carolina, as the protagonist. Yet gradually once confidence grew, this assigned itself the role of film director. In so doing, this started providing her challenging assignments to perform. As the relation between protagonist became close/intense, and the roles/capacities confused, the content of the film changed and the camera-man became more visible as protagonist. This improvised unscripted score proved to be generative and serve her poetics. Bestowing fiction with a sense of the real becoming a distorted documentary.
The short film explores the complexity of the encounter with the gaze of the other, but also her own in turn.
It is a dig into the notion of desire, female body and femininity from the eye of the camera and the camera-man. Who-what uses who-what and who-what has power over who and what?
Furthermore, the film touches on the theme of art and the environment, through the contrasting choice between materials and objects used as part of the costume, a polystyrene panel, a wig, a hammer, and the choice of location, the dunes of Het Wed, in the 'North Holland. It solicits reflections on the concept of waste and reflects on the way the environment is experienced through art, in the material world.
