Scream Machines
Art Ghost Train

Rebecca Moss, «Memento Mori», 2025 © Rebecca Moss

Scream Machines – Art Ghost Train
by Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez

22 May – 30 August 2025

>> Tokens available for 4 CHF only at the ticket desk in the museum, open during museum opening hours.

Scream Machines, a large-scale installation designed by British artist Rebecca Moss and Swiss artist Augustin Rebetez, takes visitors on a journey through an immersive artistic landscape. The installation pays homage to Le Crocrodrome de Zig et Puce, a work by Jean Tinguely created in 1977 in collaboration with Bernhard Luginbühl, Daniel Spoerri, and Niki de Saint Phalle for the opening of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

For the opening of the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1977, the artists created the Crocrodrome de Zig et Puce, a huge, walk-in sculpture for the large entrance hall with a specially designed ghost train, rods and wheels, a marble run, illuminated lettering, a 'Musée Sentimental' and a crocodile leg completely covered in chocolate. To mark Tinguely's centenary, Museum Tinguely is reviving this event and initiating the temporary artistic transformation of an existing ghost train, the 'Wiener Prater Geisterbahn', built in 1935. It was a guest at the Basel Autumn Fair for many years and has provided a special thrill for generations of passengers young and old.

 

Bernhard Luginbühl and Jean Tinguely, Le Crocrodrome de Zig & Puce (exhibition flyer), 1977, 55 x 120 cm, revised exhibition flyer with black felt-tip pen, gouache and collage Museum Tinguely, Basel, donated by Prof. Dr Roland Bieber in memory of Karola Mertz-Bieber © 2025 Pro Litteris, Zurich

Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez in the Art Ghost Train Scream Machines © 2025 Museum Tinguely, Basel; photo Matthias Willi

Rebecca Moss and Augustin Rebetez have set up a course for the Tinguely ghost train, which consists of both their own and new creations. The art ghost train is in operation from 22 May (Tinguely’s birthday) to 30 August (Tinguely’s day of death) 2025 in Solitude Park, in front of Museum Tinguely, during museum opening hours. The price of a ride is 4 chf per person.

In the telephone booth of the museum, the smallest exhibition space in the building, a selection of humorous short films by Rebecca Moss is also presented.

Augustin Rebetez, Atelier view, Ghost Train accessories, 2025 © Augustin Rebetez

Rebecca Moss
Rebecca Moss (b. 1991) lives and works in London and Essex. The young, up-and-coming artist uses humor and a penchant for the absurd to create installative arrangements in which she primarily places herself in precarious situations. For her slapstick and experimental arrangements, she makes use of everyday popular materials and images, which she activates in an inventive but often banal way. Her penchant for improvisation invites chance to collaborate. We enjoy watching this playful failure and recognize ourselves in our everyday, futile striving - a striving that we encounter as well in Tinguely's useless poetry-producing machine sculptures.

Augustin Rebetez 
Augustin Rebetez (b. 1986) lives and works in Mervelier. He is one of the most important and independent Swiss artists of his generation. His Maison Totale in Bôle has been open to visitors since summer 2024. It is a total work of art in which his fantastic visual worlds, creatures, totems, punk videos, music, dance, theater and interactive installations invite visitors on a walk-in tour. In 2016, he was a guest at the Museum Tinguely in the exhibition Prière de toucher with a large-format, walk-in installation that invited visitors to participate.