A fusion of a surreal, site-responsive installation and persona performance, “If In Doubt, Don’t,” took place in a garage in Glasgow, UK. The piece was framed as an experimental therapy for car addiction to be witnessed by an audience of one in a so-called “Undercover Treatment Center.”

The performance is directly inspired by research on behavioral psychology, the car industry, and texts by the philosopher Timothy Morton. It is indirectly inspired by J. G. Ballard’s novel Crash (a pornographic novel about technology), car pop culture, and by the performance artist/activist Guillermo Gomez-Pena.

Influenced by a recent trip to Vancouver, Canada, which I experienced as a car-dominated city, I wanted to question Western technology habits and our unsustainable car industry. In a sense, my critique of our car culture can be seen as a metaphor for the larger, human-made climate crisis. As one of the most urgent problems of our time, like many other artists, I find it immensely important to engage with it. I chose to focus on our relationship with cars is one way into the complex eco-critical territory. It is a way to process how to deal with difficult questions of human responsibility.

Despite the serious subject matter, I was eager for “If In Doubt, Don’t” to be devised in a playful, satirical, and inquisitive manner. In an attempt to avoid being blatantly didactic, I wanted to bring the perplexing issues to life and make them more meaningful by using sensuousness to appeal to people’s feelings and sensitivity. These considerations led to the decision to make it for an audience of one. As a result, we (six performers) ended up being placed in and around a car in a garage throughout the performance. One audience member at a time was invited to join us in this limited enclosed space where our self-invented therapy took place. Here, distinctive smells, live musical soundscapes, intimate spoken-word scenarios, and voluptuous, tactile sculpture costumes embraced audiences for a full-on sensory experience.

Excerpts from therapeutic DIY mantras repeated during the performance:

– The car is not my mother

– The car is not my father

– It is not my lover

– The car is here

– I let go

– The car is not my toy

– I used to desire to become one with the car—but I never really owned it and it never owned me