PORTFOLIO

The performance by Pavlína Temcsáková, staged at a car service lot where her dying, immobile car is currently located, serves as a ritual of farewell, rooting, awareness of human–machine collaboration, and a christening of the vehicle’s new life.

Here, the car signifies more than a mere machine. It is not about humanization, but rather about celebrating the embodiment of something whose service opens possibilities for the human body—possibilities that, without this machine, would remain almost insurmountable. For the artist, the performance also opens and closes other obstacles: emotional ones, not inherently connected to transport. Inside the space provided by this machine, originally created for transport, emerges a place isolated from its surroundings. A place for screaming, for love, for anticipation and dread. A place where time can be sensed with all the senses.

Humankind created the car as a helper. In late capitalism, however, the car takes on a grand and ominous meaning in the form of violence—though not for the first time. The car industry is part of an endless extraction from the environment and from workers’ bodies. It is part of the hostile transformation of space, increasingly adapted to the needs of comfortable, selfish car-loving culture. Yet it is important to remember that in the present day, it is almost impossible to maintain an honest autoboycott. One cannot fully avoid it, nor fully submit to it. In space, resistance will always remain; roads and concrete cannot be everywhere. A reciprocal plane must be sought and created—for all those present, for the environment, for greenery and fauna, for human beings, and for the elements of the earth. Temcsáková presents this reciprocity in her performance, beginning internally, with an intimate awareness of the very service that functions for all sides. It begins on the emotional level and concludes on the material one—becoming more just both emotionally and materially.

Assigning the feminine gender to Pavlína’s car also takes on new dimensions, those of feminine friendship and solidarity. Of having each other’s backs, and above all, of care. The celebratory, dancing performers, tending to and maintaining the appearance of their long-time friend and companion, pledge their loyalty to her—knowing she will remain loyal to them, even after her departure. Her loyalty will endure through mutual transformation into decorative, celebratory ornaments, becoming ever-present upon their bodies—just as our bodies are ever-present upon hers. We have created her, and she will not simply return to the earth, will not simply decompose into compost and give back the nutrients extracted from it. Yet she may adorn us; we may provide her with another shelter and care.