Simone Forti's "Planet" (1976): performative "morphing" between inter-species dialogue and ecology

Abstract

The essay focuses on the performance work Planet by Simone Forti, with music by Peter van Riper, presented for the first time at the MoMA P.S.1 (New York) in 1976, where it was interpreted by David Taylor, Terry O’Reilly, Pooh Kaye, David Appel, Paul Langland. Planet is a crucial passage in Forti’s work related to non-human species: the artist created a specific edition about it, published in 1977 in 200 copies by Edizioni Pari & Dispari of Cavriago, in collaboration with the Archivio Conz. In consonance with the physically and emotionally dialogic process of “morphing”, which is central to Forti’s entire creative path, Planet is a performance work totally characterized by hybridism. It is hybrid in the first place in the behaviours and gestures it proposes through the actions that the interpreters are called to perform. There are evident signs of this linguistic and conceptual hybridism also in the accompanying text, which is at the same time its programmatic score and its poetic extension. The piece is analysed in the context of the artist’s work and writings, and through branched reflections that are articulated between gender and ecology perspectives.