Soot Breath // Corpus Infinitum is a film dedicated to tenderness. Visual artist Arjuna Neuman and philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva arrive at their third cinematographic collaboration by combining analysis and research in a filmic way of writing that is centered on the sensitive experience of listening.
Is it possible to dissolve radical violence?
Is an existence free from extractivist logic possible?
Commissioned by CCA Glasgow International 2021, Soot Breath // Corpus Infinitum is conceived to engender contemplation: its raw materials are the blues, the heartbeat and the warmth of the human voice. Raw materials that are as precious as those within the Earth. The images, sounds, discursive tracks and melodies are all echoes of existence connected to what has happened, to what has not yet happened and to what nurses the power to make things happen. This haptic universe, devoted to care, collides with predatory instances of extractivist logic, border regimes, contemporary slavery, sexual abuse and global trade. The film reimagines a different relationship between human beings and the non-human. To do this Neuman and Ferreira da Silva criss-cross disciplines, from quantum mechanics to the teachings of pre Socratic Greek philosopher Anaximander, welcoming examples in which the skin of subjectivity, disconnected from the mind, places itself in both resonance and rebound with the world.
editing and translation of subtitles Chiara Caimi
