Performance at a gas station funded by Kunst im Öffentlichen Raum (KÖR), Vienna, 2020.
Concept, research and performance by RAUMKUR (Cosima Terrasse, Veronika Hackl and Andrea Visotschnig)

The art project MY LAST CAR by Cosima Terrasse, Veronika Hackl and Andrea Visotschnig explores what the car means for people today - in light of the current climate debate. The petrol station became a social space and meeting place for a celebration of the (last) car.

On July 18, 2020, an unusual radio station could be heard at a petrol station on Triester Straße in Vienna. While the regular customers cleaned and polished their cars as usual, a chorus of stories sounded from the radios of their cars. From time to time, a car whose engine had been cold for a long time appeared between the petrol pumps. It was looked after, cared for and worked on. At the end of the day, it was revved up one last time for a new kind of race. But the engine remained cold.

I like to listen to the radio while driving. Is that the fuel gauge?
Where is there a gas station here in the middle of nowhere?
Where is someone here, please,
that we can ask?
What does “petrol station” actually mean in Greek? Or at least in English?

MY LAST CAR is a project that is breaking down divisions in the debate on climate change and enabling discussions that are forward-looking without denying the history of the car. The dream of a family car that makes the first vacation together possible, being able to drive independently into nature, the fascination for the beautiful utility object that you can finally afford…

Technology or prestige are just some of the aspects associated with the idea of a car. What if the car we own today were our last? And what would we miss if we no longer had cars? Will the petrol station remain a meeting place if car care is no longer available?

MY LAST CAR is based on 50 memory albums in which stories and associations with cars were passed on. They tell of the emergence of new cars after the fall of the Iron Curtain or of young people who don’t even have a driver’s license but live out their “need for speed” in video games. The car becomes a relic of the climate crisis.

Stories, facts and memories about the car as a cultural asset are condensed in the quotes in the radio piece and blend with the reality of what happens at the filling station.

discussed in:
Farewell to the car?, Leporello, Ö1- 16.07.20

exhibited at the IBA, Vienna