Within the format of a panorama, the tapestry entitled A Body in Flames combines several thermal photographs taken by Rebecca Moccia in Japan, the United States, England and Italy, as part of the artist's research into the emotional state of loneliness and its politicisation.
In the tapestry, the temperature of the subjects portrayed is rendered by going beyond the chromatic range of the digital image alone, materialised through the chosen yarns themselves. Moccia has worked by weaving wool and plastic, relying on the capacity of the different fibres to retain or not retain heat, and on the softness or roughness of the surfaces that they provide.
"[...] seemingly having the task of transforming matter into an objective correlate of the image quality. This is a conceptual shift affecting our trust in machines and shattering the axiom between technique and truth, to redirect our attention towards the need to relativise its reliability. The memory of such images is primarily that of “sensual geographies”, in the words by Laura Marks: despite coming from the frontier of numerical sum, they inhabit and move through the world." (La terza via dell’arte. Rebecca Moccia by Vincenzo Estremo, Flash Art #362, Autumn 2023.)