In “As If” Effi & Amir have invite other artists to make an artwork inside their own work. In the current version of AS IF, these are 5 Albanian artists, four from Albania and one from Kosovo, that are invited to propose an artistic intervention within a radius of 500 meters from the European Parliament (which also happen to be the neighbourhood where both artist are currently living). The works will be produced only digitally or as maquet that will be photographed, and then integrated into a series of short movies of the chosen locations, shot inside Google Street View.  The artists themselves will also appear in the image, as if they were caught by the Google Street View camera, while in their supposed visit in Brussels to install the work or to present it. A voice over narration by each of the artists will tell an imaginary story that Efii & Amir will write together with them. It can relate to their work, to their “visit” in Brussels, to the instalment of the work, to the supposed reactions etc.
In this specific context, the virtual aspect, the intervention in a public representation of the world, a representation that in many respects influences our perception of the world, echoes the question of Europe as an entity versus a place, and for that matter, the debate about the possible candidature of Albania to the EU.
Effi and Amir contacted the five artists, while explaining their motivation as follows:
“This project is part of a larger investigation of the world’s most ambitious representation- Google Street View, this massive, arbitrary snapshot that became a global reference to reality. As If challenges the status of this mirror-world, and undermines the authoritarian quality of documentation. It creates an “what if” situation, that echoes the “what if” question regarding the candidature of Albania to the EU. What if Albania were an EU candidate? what if you could tell Europe your position about it? what if you would be invited to make an art-work in the European quarter? what if it really happened?”