Ballot Ballet

Ballot Ballet / Felix Henke, Rosi Pernthaller - Photo: Felix Henke

Ballot Ballet

Felix Henke (DE), Rosi Pernthaller (AT)

The European Union is a smart idea—based on cooperation, responsibility, and collective decision-making. But that idea is under pressure: National interests slow down progress, responsibility is passed on, decisions are postponed.

What happens when no one mediates? When everyone acts on their own?
In the end, someone remains standing—not because they are the most capable, but because no one intervened.

In an arena, identical robots move around—equal in speed, design, and without purpose. Each one carries a helium balloon printed with the face of a European head of government. Once the system starts, the robots roam randomly. Every time two collide, one balloon detaches—one country drops out. Eventually, only one balloon is left. One figure. The “Last Delegate.” This head of state takes control over the EU for one year.

The outcome is random—but the questions it raises are real: How would Europe change under Viktor Orbán? What would Friedrich Merz push through? Who would benefit—and who would be disadvantaged?

Ballot Ballet is a model scenario: How does power in Europe function when responsibility becomes secondary? And what can I, as an individual, do about it?

Language //

EN

  • Communication Design, School of Culture and Design, University of Applied Sciences Berlin

    The Communication Design program at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin includes an extensive curriculum that ranges from traditional design disciplines to design with future and high technologies and is closely interwoven with Berlin's dynamic tech and media art landscape. The university offers degree programs in the fields of engineering, computer science, business and design and is located in one of the most important historical industrial areas in Europe, the so-called Elektropolis Berlin.

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