A meditation on transcendence through speed, Monaco Mobile’s synesthetic installation is composed of vibrating ropes, lights, motors and surround sound projection: a kinetic design set into motion by theatrical machinery. Instigated by Giacomo Balla’s stage sets for Sergei Diaghilev’s 1917 production of Stravinsky’s Feu d’Artifice, as well as Balla’s 1918 painting “Trasformazione Forme-Spiriti”, Monaco Mobile derives from Balla two key elements: centrifugal shapes evoking dynamism and the idea of a set design which is not mere background, but is itself scenic action.

The visuals are paired with racing car sounds recorded during Monaco’s Historical Grand Prix, Grand Prix and E-Prix: a soundscape progressing from the roaring 1930 engines, to the wailing hybrid motors of the current Formula 1 and up to the alien sounds of the contemporary electric vehicles.

Visuals and sounds find their origin in the circuit of Monaco’s Grand Prix, which for me possesses a special kind of incantatory power, with its trance-inducing looping repetition, its curves of intensity, its history of speed, danger, death.