The Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève presents a live flute performance by Marianna Simnett which will expand on her video work Blue Moon, on view in Chrysalis: The Butterfly Dream. In Blue Moon, an AI-generated, glitching version of Simnett plays the flute as her body continually mutates. FIREFLY continues Blue Moon’s explorations of mimicry and the flute as a technology for transformation. Simnett’s new composition is inspired by the synchronous flashing of fireflies and their dazzling illumination of a landscape through collective behaviour.

Marianna Simnett (London, United Kingdom, 1986) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. The body and its resistance are at the heart of Marianna Simnett’s arresting artworks, which range from films, installation, performance, sculpture and drawing. Steeped in fable and myth, Simnett’s enchanting tales are as playful as they are macabre.  When not in front of the camera, Simnett casts characters through her immersion into groups. Humans who live as dogs, Albanian sworn virgins, farmers, surgeons and engineers have variously been invited to perform in fictions to play the part of themselves. Simnett’s latest video Blue Moon (2022) continues her adoption and adaptation of myths. The goddess Athena was said to have carved the first flute from a deer bone, but rejected it when she was mocked upon playing it to the other gods, for her face turned blue and cheeks puffed out. Reclaiming this moment of humiliation and marred beauty, Simnett embraces the monstrosity she saw on her face. In the video, the artist’s body takes the form of a glitching figure undergoing continual transformation.

Image: Courtesy of the artist and Société Berlin. Photo: art/beats, Felix von Boehm