Corpo d'aria

When exhibited now, the works inevitably assume the aura of a modern memento mori,[4] featuring a rotting plastic membrane stuck to a polished wooden base, with a brass plaque commemorating the original act.

Manzoni designed especially for the projection of Otto Piene's Light Ballets, but also referred to the building housing a giant maze, made up of 60 cells controlled by "an electric brain".

Manzoni is known to have been heavily influenced by Yves Klein,[7] who had released 1001 blue balloons on the opening night of his "Proposition: Monochrome" exhibition at Iris Clert’s gallery, 1957.

Indeed, his first balloon, made in 1965, corresponded to an unfulfilled project described by Manzoni in a letter as ‘a cluster of pneumatic cylinders, elongated in shape, like steel, which would vibrate in the blowing of the wind.’[9] Damien Hirst has used ping pong balls suspended in compressed air, but within the context of floating above a bed of sharp knives or a skeleton.

His most lasting influence, however, was on Arte Povera, a group of Italian artists, including Luciano Fabro and Alighiero e Boetti, who brought everyday materials into their work in a movement analogous to contemporary radical politics.