Breaking Away, 2014

VW Beetle, video, sound

Names of the towns and cities one passes through on a trip from Schweinfurt to Munich appear, slowly overlapping, on the navigation display of an open-top white VW Beetle convertible.  One hears a Franconian radio program from the 1970s, year of the vehicle’s permit.  For the generations born after the Second World War, the VW Beetle, more than any other technical achievement, symbolized a breaking away, a new beginning.  Not only was this new beginning realized in an already legendary economic prosperity, but also in a newly gained mobility.