performance week
Performance week 2 und 3, July 22 - August 03, 2025
Francesco Marzano
Pneuma - Wärmezeitmaschine
Pneuma - Wärmezeitmaschine is an immersive, participatory performance that places breath at its centre - as a primal force of life, a collective bond, and a political symbol. The performer inhabits a resonating space in which his breath is acoustically amplified. Visitors are invited to become part of this sonic fabric through their own breathing. In this way, a living interplay of sounds, rhythms, resonances and bodies emerges - an acoustic sculpture, a breathing collective. Pneuma means both "breath" and "soul" in Greek. The performance reflects on breath as a carrier of identity, a communicative potential, and a mirror of the macrocosm. Breath is as essential to our life as it is fragile - it can be hindered or suppressed, as demonstrated by pandemics or methods of violence and oppression. Inspired by Joseph Beuys' participatory art concepts and his energy plan as well as by the breathing practices of the Marina Abramović Method, the project sees itself as an artistic-social experiment, a sensual and political invitation to attend to breath as a "primordial sound", the most reduced form of togetherness, and the most elemental form of relating to the world.
about the artist(s)
Francesco Marzano (*1992, Bari) is a freelance performer and musician. He studied music and literature in Milan (Italy) and flute, music pedagogy and performance art in Cologne and Essen (Germany). His projects are characterized by a strong interdisciplinarity that combines sound, performance, word, installation. His artistic and research interests include autobiographical practices, interactions between memory and presence, individual and community, ephemeral actions and environments. He performed in several festivals including MiTo, Cantiere internazionale d'arte, Acht Brücken, Warsaw Autumn, KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen and worked with artists such as Marina Abramović, Christina Kubisch, Salvatore Sciarrino and Doris Uhlich. He also works as a radio journalist and author in the fields of philology, performance art, theatre and music.
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