THE LAST PERFORMANCE

The Last Performance is a two-channel video installation that stages a programmed system of joy by juxtaposing simulated spectacle with real ruin. The work unfolds across three spatial conditions that function as different states of a single structure rather than a linear narrative. A miniature circus models designed happiness and mechanical pleasure; an abandoned amusement park reveals the exhaustion and collapse of that logic; an empty theatre exposes the moment where subjectivity begins to fracture.

Through spatial displacement and split-screen composition, actions migrate between sites, producing multiple versions of the self: one that performs, one that resists, and one that attempts to exit. The divided screen fractures attention, positioning viewing itself as a managed operation rather than a neutral act. In this structure, spectatorship becomes part of the system being examined.

The clown figure operates as an interface between system and subject. His gestures loop, recalibrate and repeat, transforming emotion into protocol and expression into execution. Performance no longer responds to audience presence, but to an invisible set of instructions that regulate behaviour and affect.

Here, the ‘last performance’ is not an ending, but a minimal act of refusal: a brief interruption within a scripted world. Rather than offering resolution, the work holds open a question of agency. When roles, emotions and modes of watching are already programmed, where, if anywhere, can a subject still act?