Seeing beyond the visible: a choreography of breath and touch

This visual essay seeks to explore the themes and process of making of Thermal Duets (2019), a collaborative work between ourselves and performed by Martina Conti and Alice Labant. It comprises a series of five short video pieces using thermal imaging technology. Each video is separately titled (Shed, Shroud, Exchange, spread, Stroke) and offers a different notion of trace, either of breath or touch to amplify the residue and effect of body heat. Intrinsic is the tension and release as it exists here between the technology and the sensorial, between our understanding of our embodied selves and of that which the technology makes visible. Through careful design the work straddles scientific demonstration with an emotional resonance of one individual to another. This tension then between what is seen (separated from us) and what is felt (enmeshed within us) underlines the sense of tension and release for the viewer.

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