Kaïs Dhifi TN
ThunderGolf
Sculptural and immersive installation
Saturday 24 October from 2 pm to 10 pm
Sunday 25 October from 2 pm to 6 pm
Friche La Belle de Mai
Place des Horizons
Marseille
Free entry; bookings can be made on the day
Visites
Guided tours of the exhibition “Sensitive Cartography and Reconstructed Memories”, followed by a tour of the ThunderGolf installation in the company of the artist on Saturday 24 October from 2.00 pm to 3.30 pm in French Sign Language, then from 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm for the general public
ThunderGolf is an immersive installation set in the fictional universe of Metalia. Blending sculpture, virtual reality, and sound, it activates a real-time, audience-driven post-apocalyptic odyssey. At the heart of the installation, a Volkswagen Golf Mk2 modified for hostile terrain becomes an interactive mobile vehicle. Serving as a functional sculpture, narrative architecture, and performance space, it combines mechanical elements with immersive technologies, functioning as a threshold between practical use and fiction, physical reality and speculative projection.
In a future marked by fluid borders, climate change, and techno-cultural hybridization, the experience unfolds across three simultaneous and interdependent modes of perception. Every action taken by the driver (navigation, radio, lights, signals) alters the environment perceived by the passenger in real time. From the outside, the viewer picks up on the narrative fragments being broadcast. This synchronization of the three points of view—without any imposed hierarchy—forms the dramatic core of the work. The soundtrack takes the form of pirate radio stations from Metalia, broadcast via a built-in sound system, extending the narrative space beyond the vehicle and anchoring the installation in an autonomous soundscape.
By transforming an iconic everyday object into a performative installation, ThunderGolf brings together popular automotive culture, speculative fiction, and immersive systems to offer a poetic counter-mythology of mobility.
Cast
Artistic design: Kaïs Dhifi
Co-design and XR production: Sélim Harbi (Saraab XR)
XR engineering: Mohamed Ali Ezzeddine
Artistic assistant: Cindy Gaschereau
Sound engineering: Terence Meunier
Music curation: Skander Besbes
Artistic outreach: Kenza Zouari
Legal Notices
A CHRONIQUES CRÉATIONS Platform project. Coproduction : CHRONIQUES CRÉATIONS – Pôle régional de la création en environnement numérique – Région PACA, pour la Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques, dans le cadre de la plateforme CHRONIQUES CRÉATIONS.
Production : Guild of Metalia
Avec le soutien de Lieux publics – Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public, Institut Français de Tunisie, Culture Moves Europe – Programme financé par l’Union européenne
Listen to Les Chroniques de Metalia* – Kaïs Dhifi and Kenza Zouari
In this series of discussions, Kenza Zouari, an independent curator, together with the artist Kaïs Dhifi, explore the artistic world of Metalia, from which the work originates.
These discussions took place during a residency at Studio Euphonia; their broadcast has been made possible thanks to the support of Radio Grenouille.
Kaïs Dhifi
Straddling the line between myth and fiction, Kaïs Dhifi develops a sculptural and immersive practice rooted in the remnants of an imagined, forgotten, or yet-to-come territory. Her work combines sculpture, installation, and narrative devices to explore the transformation of perceptions within speculative environments.
Influenced by archaeology, vernacular techniques, and magical realism, he creates structures and artifacts that function as fragments of an ever-expanding narrative. These are part of Metalia, a fictional, cartographic universe where the narrative unfolds through objects, spaces, and interactions.
By transforming material into an interface, his works explore experiences situated at the intersection of Mediterranean traditions and a techno-global imagination, offering a speculative mythology of contemporary worlds in flux.
