REPLICA
2023
In her performances, Marilisa Cosello analyses and deconstructs social
structures, reflecting on contexts characterized by the presence of rules. For Babel, the thirteenth edition of the Video Sound Art festival, the artist presents Replica, an investigation into the definition of identity in relation to social apparatuses.
The group of performers, consisting of students from the Arnaldo and Tartaglia- Olivieri high schools in Brescia, was invited to reflect on norms and institutions, observing contemporary archetypes and stereotypes. The socio-cultural installations are spatially represented by compositions of school desks: the scenography of the
performance consists of object-modules arranged in variable shapes. The
intervention is divided into four acts, visual metaphors of four institutions: family, school, work and politics. The staging of iconic family portraits from the history of art - Famiglia e Corte di Ludovico Il Gonzaga, 1465-1474 by Andrea Mantegna, Ritratto della famiglia Antinori, 1834 by Giuseppe Bezzuoli, Madonna del Magnificat, 1481-1485 by Sandro Botticelli - are followed by representations of a school class, a work context, and a political
judiciary. In the choreography construction, the students reserve the freedom to identify their own role within the performance. The choices, albeit instinctive, of individuals
influence the outcome of the work, bringing out the necessary subversive element.
This performer’s autonomy, the interaction with space and surrounding objects are factors that contribute to challenging the rules of the present, instilling doubt in the dogma.

Laura Lamonea, Video Sound Art 2023