On the occasion of Opentour 2026, LABS Contemporary Art presents Ripetizioni on June 11, an exhibition curated by Luca Panaro. Ripetizioni is an exhibition project in which young artists from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna engage with the language of video art, developing the teachings of the Bachelor’s Degree Program in Cinema and Audiovisual Languages.

In Maddalena Biasci’s video Trans Ago (2025), the footage shows a needle piercing the skin, and from that moment onward the images appear in negative: colors are inverted and a magnetic sound replaces natural audio. The audiovisual work references the practice of acupuncture, stripping it of its medical dimension to become a medium that points toward an altered realm. It remains unclear whether the work refers to inner life, a science-fiction dimension, or simply a distorted perception; nevertheless, the trance-like state into which the individual gradually falls as the needles are inserted becomes increasingly evident. The artist’s intention is both to stimulate the viewer on a sensory level and to hypnotize them through images that would ordinarily provoke aversion or cause one to look away.

In Emma Conforti’s video work Dis-Morphe (2025), the artist addresses the theme of dysphoria through a sequence of close-up images depicting a nude body. The shots capture details of the epidermis, rendering the portrayed body almost unnatural and depriving it of any clear sexual connotation. It becomes an alien, pulsating body, perhaps caught in a state of profound emotional discomfort, restlessness, and dissatisfaction, the origin of which remains uncertain. At the same time, the body’s movements also suggest a certain sensuality of form: a slow torsion that reshapes the filmed fragments, altering their appearance. This ambiguity is further amplified by the dual-channel video installation.

Francesca Dalla Pietà’s short film Pigeons (2025), on the other hand, shifts the focus from the human body to the animal body. The video presents a simple and direct sequence dedicated to a group of pigeons filmed within an urban environment. The birds are shown moving along the ground, pecking for food, and interacting with one another in a public space. The camera remains mostly static or limited in movement, maintaining a neutral observational stance. There is no real narrative, but rather a succession of everyday moments linked to the birds’ behavior which, also through a series of off-screen sounds, evokes the similarities they share with human beings.

In this final video, attention is concentrated on repetitive gestures and group dynamics, such as movement and the search for food, as well as the pigeons’ alienation and their inability to perform activities beyond the few actions for which they seem programmed. These same reiterated actions can also be found in the previous video works, where the human body likewise appears unable to escape the repetition of gesture, further emphasized by the looping structure of the images, which deliberately avoids a more linear narrative form.