GESTÄNDNISTIER

Abstract

Sound installation Cast: Tim Oliphant Script and direction: Margaux Schwarz @When it moves, strengthening its skin, Dortmunder Kunstverein (Dortmund, DE) 2022

The sound installation 'GESTÄNDNISTIER', conceives of the spatial body of the car as a confessional. The work is conditioned by textlessness, for it uses onomatopoeia, the linguistic imitation of extra-linguistic sound events. Inspired by the historian and philosopher Michel Foucault’s statement that Western man has become a «confession animal», two cars enter a confessional exchange with each other. With the linguistic act of confession, the subject bears witness to its selfhood and binds itself and its own being to it as truth. At the same time, through this claim to truth, it enters into a relationship of dependence with its counterpart, who must bear witness to this act, which also changes the subject’s relationship to itself. Thus, while one character in Schwarz articulates an unbearable laughter that is dehumanized and purged of emotion, the other takes on the role of the listener and witness. 'GESTÄNDNISTIER' shows itself as a machinated subject talking to itself alone and circling around itself.

Text: Florentine Muhry Images and video: Robin Hinsch