Fiorenza Menni and Marta Dell'Angelo's Manuale della figura umana Blurs Process and Product

The interdisciplinary performance Manuale della figura umana, created by playwright-director Fiorenza Menni and visual artist Marta Dell'Angelo, premiered in Bologna. The work stages the installation of a layout from Dell'Angelo's 2007 artist book, blending theatrical action with visual art construction. During the performance, an actress explained staging techniques to invisible installers while four performers assembled the artwork on one side, as dancers and a gymnast moved among the audience. The piece culminates with spectators invited to view the finished work, collapsing the distinction between process and product. The artists describe their collaboration as a mutual opportunity for development, where theatrical action finds a place to propose interpretations closer to real actions, freeing installation from museum or gallery modes. The review, published on Artribune, analyzes the work through semiotic and philosophical lenses, referencing Ludwig Feuerbach's concept of alienation and Gilles Deleuze's 'disjunctive synthesis.' The performance challenges the rhetorical separation of process and product, arguing that a crystalline process can produce an object as powerful as a Feuerbachian projection. The work was presented by Ateliersi.