Saint Victoria's Incorruptible Body

Expanded Cinema Magic Lantern & Noise Duo featuring Melissa Ferrari & DYMPHNA (Sam Gurry)

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Saint Victoria’s Incorruptible Body is an expanded cinema performance duo featuring magic lanternist Melissa Ferrari & artist DYMPHNA (Sam Gurry). 

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The performance revives the history of magic lantern phantasmagoria, harboring projections of apparitions & occult landscapes while resurrecting historical intersections of feminism, religious ecstasy, science, & the supernatural.  Ferrari provides visuals through a menagerie of antique magic lanterns and handmade magic lantern slides based on antique designs, including geared slides and dissolving views, that have been adapted to subjects that range from the Salem witch trials and the history of alchemy to incorruptible bodies, weeping statues & ectoplasm.  

Sam Gurry, as DYMPHNA, blends voice and guitar through a variety of effects pedals initiating an impassioned wall of sound at times both melancholy and incensed.  DYMPHNA thrashes, screams, and settles into a place that can only be found by those not looking for it.

 

The performances take the form of a loosely improvised Twenty Five to Thirty minute set consisting of three acts.  Many of Ferrari’s handmade slides incorporate moving elements, water, or dyes drawing the eyes to their ephemerality. Several, including a slide of Saint Victoria herself, decay slightly with each use and will continue to do so until she disappears all together. - SG

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Please contact for booking.

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Select Performances:

Ann Arbor Film Festival | Ann Arbor, MI (March 2019)

Heritage Square Museum | Los Angeles, CA (February & October 2020)

Virtual Performance | The New School | New York, NY (May 2020)

San Diego Underground Film Festival - Tenth Avenue Arts Center (August 2018)

Non Plus Ultra | Los Angeles, CA (June 2019)

MULTI CULT | Lyric Hyperion Theatre | Los Angeles, cA (October 2018)