“Conversation with Boxing Gloves between Chamecki and Lerner” is a result of a commission given by Performa ’09, who asked chameckilerner to interpret “A Discussions with Boxing Gloves between Marinetti and Ungari”, one of the 11 segments of the 1918 futurist movie ” La Vita Futurista”. La Vita futurista is considered one of the first avant-garde films ever made and there is no copy ever found of the film. The only material given to chameckilerner was the title and a faded black and white picture of Marinetti and Ungary in a park with boxing gloves.
“Conversation” specifically follows the ideal of the Futuristc Cinema: impressionistic, dynamic, free-wording, essentially visual and violent. Appropriating from futuristic’s aesthetic passion for simultaneity, chameckilerner superimposed “conversation”, to reveal a metaphor of their long time collaboration. Their symbiotic identity is reflected in the “ONE” that is neither Rosane nor Andrea, is both at the same time.
As a comment on revisiting a movement like Futurism, – whose aim was only to look forward – the choreography was made from end to beginning and played backwards, thus evoking a strangeness in the film, an inversion of energy, a punch that moves in instead of out.
In addition, in “Conversation” the futurist ideals are deliberately perverted, not just with the inversion of the movement energy, created by the playback but also the male characters are turned into females, the violence of the fight becomes a dionysian dance. The feminine prevails the masculine.