Agrippina é Roma-Manhattan

Backland prophets and bandits are popular figures in Brazil’s long and often violent history. After the coup of 1964, the country suffered from a repressive military dictatorship, afflicted by abrogations of human rights that included censorship, random arrests and torture. In the face of this regime, Oiticica was drawn to the image of the outlaw, as he was to Rimbaud, placing himself and his work beyond the law.
To risk a meditation on the pitfalls of appetite and greed, the artist identifies Agrippina, the widowed Roman aristocrat fierce with the blood of the Caesars, translated to the New York of now, promenading on the arm of a B-cast pimp.
The restless camera roams the majestic architecture of Manhattan, pausing to ogle the bare legs of a young woman (Cristiny Nazareth), presumably the Agrippina of the title. She wears a flirty red halter-top minidress and strappy sandals that wrap provocatively well above her knees.
Quasi cinema is a term that Oiticica and Brazilian filmmaker Neville d’Almeida coined for their experiments in film and slide projections, carried out in New York in the 1970s. These works seek to challenge the traditionally passive relationship between the cinematic image and the spectator and present a chaotic and fractured world where pop culture, social issues, film and music are merged into a complex installation experience.