Taz

TAZ – Temporary Autonomous Zone
Installation and Performance
Naples, 2011
Napoli Teatro Festival Italia
In collaboration with Vidal Bini, Caroline Allaire, Manuel Carreras

In June 2011, within the performative pathway A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, conceived and directed by Lorenzo Gleijeses at the former Asilo Filangieri in Naples (Napoli Teatro Festival Italia), I developed TAZ, a site-specific intervention interweaving sound art, video, material presence, and dance into an immersive dispositif articulated through four interconnected installation and performance components.

TAZ explored sound as material force, the body as unstable image, and space as a perceptual membrane.
Within the historic architecture of Asilo Filangieri, the intervention constructed a temporary autonomous zone of sensory experience, where vibration, light, and corporeal tension redefined the relationship between architecture and perception.

Components of the intervention

• Sound Installation
A woofer positioned horizontally on a vibrating surface contained a layer of sand.
Low-frequency audio signals activated the speaker membrane, setting the sand into continuous motion.
Sound became visible physical force: the sand constantly reconfigured itself into ephemeral geometries shaped by frequency and amplitude.

• Audio/Video Installation
Two large floor-level windows functioned as rear-projection surfaces.
Urban environments were projected from within, creating the illusion of openings onto exterior space.
Within the projected images, a moving human shadow — generated live — was integrated into the video stream, producing an ambiguous presence suspended between real body and projected image.

• Video Installation on Matter
A vertical projection was mapped onto a small mound of salt.
The granular, reflective surface transformed the image into an unstable relief, generating tension between flatness and volume, light and material substance.

• Dance Performance
A performer acted beneath a stretched horizontal layer of transparent elastic theatrical tulle.
From inside, she shaped and deformed the surface, producing slowly shifting organic forms. Vertical abstract projections interacted with the fabric, emphasizing the contours of the deformations and transforming the body into a moving sculpture — suspended between presence and abstraction.