In daylight, Klara Hobza’s installation Prequel, 2011, didn’t look like much: just a rectangle of slats, four of which were placed horizontally and provided a base for forty-eight lightbulbs, which were connected to three heavy switches—a strange bricolage of elements visible through the window of this storefront gallery. Yet at night the work lit up the neighborhood and put a glow on the street: It is a machine for sending out Morse code. Hobza repeatedly visited the gallery at night, put on industrial-grade sunglasses so as not to be blinded by the light, and sent out messages into the

In a darkened section of the gallery, a film projector cast an image onto the wall: the barren, gray surface of the moon pocked with craters. Looking down as if floating above it, the camera bobs and swivels. Next, the film observes the interaction of floating, gently spinning glass vases, which draw meteoric paths in slow motion. The vases, the carved wooden spoons, and the repoussé gold-leafed eighth-century Thai Buddha seen in the 35-mm film appeared as well in a series of photographs occupying the gallery’s other room. These objects are replicas of works in the collection of the Victoria

What if the humdrum schlock of home-shopping programs were replaced with offers to participate in actual experiences? What if, for the “special introductory offer” price of 9.99, you could buy a role in a fantasy sequence on live television? Leaving the isolated comfort of your living room, you would travel to Berlin (transportation and accommodation included) to star in one of three scenes: Stasi-style interrogation, queer Victorian-era porno play, or lying in your own hospital deathbed surrounded by family members, whom you tell once and for all how much you really hate them. So went the