INOSCULATION was a first step in the research for a new choreographic series with the title AUTO-FICTIONS. INOSCULATION explores the anatomy of a marionette (The Kid) in the making of an imagined in/animate figure as the choreographers child-like alter ego or representative inner child. The Kid was conceived and constructed for the short movie GRAFTING SELF that will be published in 2023.

Over the course of 5 weeks Ian Kaler collaborated with set desinger Nanna Neudeck in a formalized process of working on a test dummy of the marionette in which they explored the possibilities of materiality/materials and techniques, the anatomy and principles in movement of core, head, joints, limbs and extremities and the design and making of the face and presence of The Kid.

This work-process was followed by two evenings at LE STUDIO Film und Bühne c/o Studio Molière of a collage-like work in progress, showing and talk, in which Kaler shared and combined video-footage documenting the process with other materials, fragments and questions from the research and process.

The title INOSCULATION refers to the naturaly occuring phenomenon of trunks, branches and roots of two trees growing together; the term inosculation is also used in the context of plastic surgery for a mechanism by which skin grafts take at the host site.