The Invisible Ones Or The Tower at Basel

Housed in their skyscrapers like modern gods, managers at the world’s central banks shape the fortunes of nations. And like Zeus of Olympus, Theresia Walser’s Mr Greeper endures various attacks of one sort or another. Protesters gather outside his tower to demonstrate against the lack of transparency in his policies, while two of his staff secretly plot the downfall of this «Pope of the financial world». Guston would prefer to abolish cash altogether instead of, as Greeper advocates, continuing to print “cotton rags” for circulation. Like a modern Cassandra, Ferchl predicted the latest recent financial crisis; convinced that the capital market has become uncontrollable, he urges drastic reform. Tronje, the «Master of the Tower», is loyal to Greeper, mainly because she wants his job. The ageless servants Lynn and Fine move between these factions like spirits, having grown deaf and dumb yet also all-knowing. When Greeper announces that Argentina, an emerging nation, is to join the «Inner circle», an open struggle for power ensures, ending in a silent death.

In The Invisible Ones, Theresia Walser remoulds recent events into a nightmarish comedy presenting a select group of individuals who decide over the fates of countless others yet who seem as pitifully normal as the rest of us mere mortals. Her exploration of small yet important details explicates a broader picture and wider contexts that have the power to reconfigure our views of the financial world and much more besides.