"Liturgy for the prepared body" is a single-take video featuring synchronized swimmer Viktoria Sobota, member of the Austrian youth team. In a stylized flight attendant’s uniform, she performs the choreography of an in-flight safety demonstration entirely underwater.
The piece draws on parallels between two professions still predominantly associated with women: synchronized swimming and flight attending. Both demand peak physical performance under extreme conditions while presenting an illusion of ease, elegance, and composure. At the same time, both remain culturally undervalued, shaped by strict aesthetic codes, and subjected to a sexualized gaze.
By transferring the gestures of safety instructions—ritualized performances of preparedness for catastrophe into a submerged environment, In Emergency turns an unlikely scenario (a plane sinking) into lived reality. The work stages labour as loop: repetition despite adversity, performance despite risk. Between sequences, long shots of the empty pool punctuate the action, creating an “editorial catastrophe” suspended between spectacle and void.

Concept and directing: Miriam Schmidtke
Synchronized swimmer: Viktoria Sobota
Camera: Markus Zahradnik
Music: EPILOG / Véra Marie Deubner

Funded with a grant for media art by the Cultural Department of Vienna (MA7),  Austria