Last Call

Sound installation inside a car

On the occasion of TRIENNALE 2017, Valeria Schwarz invites the audience to take a seat in a car, listen to a taped narration and thus go on an exploratory tour through a fictitious city.

A woman’s voice welcomes the visitor so that he/she understands that she/he is part of a journey to go from “one side of the tunnel” to the “other side”. The voice directly addresses the visitor who is supposed to come from another society where she/he has settled on “the other side of the tunnel,” a place that has managed to overcome the western modern paradigm.

The audio utilizes a social-science-fiction context to open up the question of the different possibilities of living together. It talks about the person as individual and questions the public spheres, where the individual and collective interest are in conflict. The voice presents ideologies known and established in western society such as modernity and capitalism. The voice also represents and embodies these concepts. The work is positioned in a speculative approach to civil disobedience in order to create meaning and suggest a call for action. The installation put the spectator in a power position, and asks her/him to take full responsibility for the decisions taken. The trip is developed as a promise with its compromises and responsibilities, the light screen symbolizing the end of the tunnel and hope.