"I've composed a new American national anthem," the artwork's neon capital letters read.
"Take a knee and scream until you can't breathe".
Below these instructions from artist Nicholas Galanin are a grid of mats - and people really do get on the floor for a cathartic scream.
Neon American Anthem is just one of the artworks on Dark Mofo's 2025 slate - of the kind Tasmania's midwinter arts event has become known for.
The festival returns in full force in June, backed by $7 million in state government funding, after running a greatly reduced program in 2024 as production costs went through the roof.
Another feature of the 2025 program is Crash Body, from Brazilian artist Paula Garcia.
It's a performance piece with two cars, in which the artist and a stunt driver veer ever closer to each other until they crash head-on.
"It should be a very stressful experience for everyone, but I think ultimately a great release at the end," the festival's artistic director Chris Twite said.
One stress for Twite might be whether taxpayer dollars come with strings attached, but he is confident the state's Liberal government supports the boundary-pushing event.
"They want to make sure that Dark Mofo can continue to do what it's known for," he said.
Playwright and artist Nathan Maynard presents a series of preserved sheep's heads in a basement in an artwork interrogating the theft of Indigenous ancestral remains.
There's also a chance to see Ida Sophia's tense video performance work Witness, a recent winner of the Ramsay art prize, in which the artist gasps for breath as she is repeatedly baptised.
Brave festival-goers might also choose to enter a narrow corridor and contend with a black-clad figure swinging a police baton as part of an artwork by Brazil's Paul Setubal.
Dark Mofo had a curious audience that seeks out works such as these, Twite said, while the event's website and staff forewarned people about the content of artworks.
The festival attracted more than 300,000 people to Tasmania from 2013-23 - visitors sorely missed by the state's tourism sector in 2024.
With a full-strength Dark Mofo coming up, June hotel bookings in the state's south are already 10 per cent higher than they were 12 months ago, according to Tourism Tasmania.
Twite is also confident that demand for the event remains strong after 6000 pre-release tickets to the Night Mass party sold out in less than four hours.
The music program opens with famed Portishead vocalist Beth Gibbons and features 17 acts whose only Australian performance is at Dark Mofo.
One of these is US rap performer Tierra Whack, with experimental electronic music outfit Rival Consoles and synth-pop/noise act Cold Cave also on the bill.
Twite has also programmed events in Launceston and at the Ulverstone planetarium.
Dark Mofo will run from June 5 to 15, with the nude Solstice Swim at Long Beach at sunrise on June 21.
Tickets go on sale on Wednesday.
