IGOR  SANTOS

body_no_thing [music and fountains]
2022

-Water Triptych part I-

Instrumentation: Piano and Video
Duration: 15 minutes
Composition, Video, and Sound Design: Igor Santos
Performance: Igor Santos
Staging and Costume Design: Igor Santos & Eric N. Mack

Premiere Performance: Jan. 27, 2022. Open Studios at the American Academy in Rome

body_no_thing is a live performance multimedia work centered on the theme of fountains and its relationship to the piano. The piece showcases sounds and images from fountains in Rome, quotes and deconstructs fountain-related works from the canonic music literature, and engages with the rituals and labor of live performance. My general approach is to create connections between these worlds in a complex mimetic cycle—constantly navigating between the piano, performer, and real-life samples, as well as back and forth in historical time.

The work dresses the pianist and the piano in white cloth, allowing images to be projected onto them while also emulating the marble and travertine of fountains, and the folds of baroque ornamentation. The design for the outfit and piano were made in collaboration with Philip Guston Rome Prize Fellow Eric N. Mack.




drawing by AAR's Enel Italian Fellow In Architecture Valerio Morabito, inpired by the premiere performance of body_no_thing