Two Actions United in One Frame

Two Actions United in One Frame opens on a scene of everyday mourning: a gathering marked by loss, distraction, and a quiet sense of boredom in the face of death. In the background of this cemetery, faint rings drift into the sky. These vaporous circles recall those that filled social media in 2023, when Mount Etna began exhaling perfect “O”s—ephemeral smoke rings suspended against the blue, livestreamed by onlookers in awe. 

Taking these circular puffs as stargates, the video becomes a journey that moves, quite literally, from a fart to a sigh—a detour through the intertwined anatomies of the anus and of grief. This progression opens a space of reverence for Jean Genet: a hand slipping into a pocket to clutch a tiny coffin. In Funeral Rites, Genet’s protagonist Jean holds a box of matches at his lover’s burial, his thoughts lingering on the symmetry between the two containers—the coffin above the ground and the miniature within his trousers. Whether filled with matches or bones seems to make no difference. 

Conceived for the exhibition Anus Horribilis, held at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen in 2024, the work plays on the phrase Annus Horribilis—the “horrible year” that stands in opposition to Annus Mirabilis, a “wonderful one.” In the perplexing times we inhabit, the title needs little further explanation.

Courtesy of Martina Simeti.

This screening is part of Paradoxical Sleep, the third chapter of the film program TUTTAUNANOTTE, curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, and unfolding in four chapters between November 1, 2025 and December 26, 2025, with the films of each chapter streaming for two weeks.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.