Needle and paper - Roberta Pucci

nonaorbach
Jul 3, 2025
2 min read

Updated: Oct 8, 2025

Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic…

A needle taps over and over on a sheet of paper, each stroke piercing it. The action focuses on a specific area, as if trying to hit an invisible line. Like in a scene from a movie, when there’s a shooting through a closed door, and the burst of bullets follows the imagined position of the enemy behind it.

The needle movement is quick, rhythmic, hypnotic, minute, and precise. Energy is channelled into a pinpoint.

Slowly, the imaginary line begins to fray until it splits open, and a piece of paper breaks away. The edges of both parts have a perforated margin, a jagged row of tiny, irregular teeth, some of which come off easily. The smallest fragments look like powdery snow - a paradoxical image, considering they’ve been created by the harsh erosion of a metal tip.

And yet, for the needle to pierce so sharply, there must be a soft surface underneath the sheet of paper.

When the shape breaks free, the movement stops. Silence.

The two pieces, now apart, begin to live separate lives.

Or are they still somehow connected?

Typically, a needle is a tool for joining, but it can also serve the opposite purpose: to separate through a dense sequence of tiny punctures. The quality of this separation is intimately connected with the identity of the tool itself.

How many ways are there to separate (and to part)? How many actions, variations, and tools?

Every action resonates within the body, creating an inner echo deep inside. How does the body feel during the gesture, and what sensations and qualities does it perceive?

For example, what is the difference between separating by tearing and by cutting? Tearing is done by hand, contact is direct; cutting involves a tool that introduces distance between the body and the material, mediating the action. The sound is different, as are the aesthetic characteristics of the separation line. Tearing also reveals the fibrous nature of paper and thus the existence of a grain direction, so that tearing in one way or the other generates more or less resistance and a different effect.

But above all, cutting allows for greater control over the separation line, which is much sharper and more defined, while tearing always involves a margin of unpredictability.