Gina Czarnecki

Infected is a film about the physical body in the context of future technological possibilities, explored through dance and digitally manipulated imagery. It opens in darkness, as a small streak of light expands into more complex shapes and gradually reveals the body of a dancer. Confined within a circular projection screen, she moves with the distracted, disorientated impatience of a caged animal. As the film progresses, the image is manipulated until ‘flesh takes on an almost liquid appearance’: the figure stutters, jumps, blurs and breaks, as if disrupted by electronic interference, a deformation that mirrors the body’s descent into trauma. Czarnecki leaves her central question open. Is this a vision of the human body ‘infected’ by biotechnology, or is the reverse happening, with the warm-blooded body of sinews and emotions corrupting the ‘pure light’ of technology? The film features Scottish dance artist Iona Kewney and a specially commissioned score by Fennesz, one of the most influential figures in electronic music.