Una trama di Borges a Venezia
2000
A film by Florian Mühlbauer and Volker Lang based on the performance of the same title at the German Study Centre in the Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza in Venice
The short story “Death and the Compass”, original title: La muerte y la brújul from 1942 by Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) provides the source material.
Created in collaboration with the actors: Maria Ariis, Giovanni Franzoni, Bruna Rossi and Massimiliano Speziani.
During my scholarship at the German Study Center in Venice in 1998, I began to combine literary texts with artistic practices. While studying the rhythms of proportion in palace facades and sacred spaces, I simultaneously searched for compositional techniques in novels and short stories. For example, in “Life: A User’s Manual” original title: La Vie mode d’emploi by Georges Perec.
In response to the invitation of the director to develop a work for the extraordinary location of the Palazzo Barbarigo, I came upon this short story by Borges which I would interweave with Venetian architecture. Following the dramaturgy of the crime story, actors guided the audience through the palace. The selection of stations related the course of the crimes in the story to the narrative structure of the historical rooms. The visitors followed the various incidents, interlinked by the form of a diamond, to the terrace, where a wall blocked the view and prompted the guests to turn their attention back to the palazzo and its labyrinthine events in order to witness the revelation of the final crime.