This reversible ambiguity is the game at play in the two-headed and “three”-handed video by Roberto Cascone and Natascia Abbattista. The ambiguity is also reflected in the attribution of artistic authorship of this work. It could be, for Roberto, merely the documentation of a performance by Natascia, or for Natascia, a simple enactment of her actor’s body under Roberto’s direction. So, is it she who appears estranged under the operator’s gaze (and thus under ours as well), or is it he who reveals her to us through his own troubled gaze?

There are convincing reasons to associate the discourse with the individual research of both. Let’s look at it from Abbattista’s point of view. This very young artist has “always” played with the narcissistic display of an adolescent self, falsely innocent. A cheeky Lolita, who in these images brushes up against obscenity with indifference, simulates overt sexual cues, incites desire with a disarmed (and disarming) coldness, emphasized by the greenish hues of an alien light.
Her facial contortions recall historical body art, Bruce Nauman in particular. But there is no liberating impulse in the mimetic crescendo of these actions. Nor can we read in them any restless posthuman projections. Rather, there is a self-ironic need for self-representation, a grotesque attempt to appropriate her own female image. The result is an ironic and childishly provocative self-portrait, which is also the portrait of an entire generation in search of identity.