Liliane Puthod: Beep Beep

Liliane Puthod’s Beep Beep is an immersive artwork exploring handmade and mechanised production, commodity fetishism, and consumerism. As part of Longest Way Round, Shortest Way Home at The Pumphouse, Dublin Port, it features a 1962 Renault 4 (R4) reanimated from her father’s collection.

The R4, a popular French economy car, reflects personal and social history, linking French and Irish industrial landscapes. Restored by Puthod and her team, it recently completed a 900km journey from France to Ireland, documented by artist Ingrid Lyons and sound artist Jennifer Moore/Dreamcycles.

The exhibition presents the R4 within shipping containers reimagined as chambers filled with a mix of handmade and machine-made artifacts. The car, surrounded by mementos from its journey, serves as a ‘time machine’ bridging industrial repair and personal memory, highlighting the enduring significance of physical objects in our lives.