In the footsteps of a ghost.

Affections and absence in Un cuerpo estalló en mil pedazos

Abstract

In this article we propose to explore some of the strategies used by Un cuerpo estalló en mil pedazos (Martín Sappia, 2020) to evoke the figure of Jorge Bonino, a performer from Córdoba who developed, in his work, an unintelligible language. The film searches for an absent subject, through working the cartographic, sensorial and spectral dimensions of images (Depetris, 2019; Marks, 2000) to move different layers of affections that bring us closer to Bonino, building his figure as a ghost, according to the definition of Solar Olivares (2016). 

We analyze different sequences in which the itinerary of the film is linked to Bonino's way of inhabiting the world, the images of empty spaces refer to his ghostly gaze, the sound textures work as vehicles for affections, turning our bodies into resonance boxes, and the spectral voices are articulated to give rise to fabulation as a central element in the construction of the ghost.