(2026)

The video essay Where Echoes Linger traces a path from the last execution in Liechtenstein to today’s shitstorms, which publicly condemn alleged misconduct, mostly on social media.

On 26 February 1785, Barbara Erni became the last person in Liechtenstein to be executed by the sword in a highly publicised spectacle on Güediga Hill – the place where I grew up. Barbara Erni was regarded a vagrant, thief and prostitute. Erni’s publicly staged execution was intended above all to serve as a deterrent and, according to sources, was witnessed by ‘several thousand local and foreign spectators’ on Güediga Hill.

Where Echoes Linger revisits the story of Barbara Erni and questions whether the theme of guilt and the attribution of blame finds an echo today in shitstorms, whilst exploring the mechanisms of public display and societal mob dynamics. Today's mechanisms of online backlash are placed in relation to historical events, highlighting the destructive power of digital rage in the context of collective tensions and fears.

Exhibited at Kunst(zeug)haus in Rapperswil in the exhibition ‘Fragments of Places.’