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DRIFTERS
2022
2K video | 2.39:1 | 6.50 min. | color | sound


Drifters documents precise minimalist intervention within a natural setting. The immersive moving-image work presents a white geometric shape painted on a leaf continuously and gently moved by the wind. Set within a seemingly untouched landscape of countless organic hues, the white element initially appears incongruous: it is an austere formal antithesis to its surroundings while simultaneously merging with them through its meditative, rhythmic motion. The geometric rectangle, as one of the most elementary forms capable of constructing a delimited surface, directly calls to mind the Western ideal of pure, autonomous form as a superior cultural construct. Yet only a few minutes into the six-minute fixed-angle shot, this clear distinction begins to dissolve: the white rectangle and the leaf, figure, and ground gradually merge into one another through continuous movement. In this process, the white rectangle—now perceived as a “blank space”—comes to articulate less a gesture of domination or abstraction than an image of insubstantial emptiness. The presumed opposition between cultural construction and natural rhythm reveals itself as a false perception. Nature is the base of everything: All things arise from nature and pass away into nature. Nothing remains fixed; everything is in constant movement, everything is in constant transformation.



Concept / Camera / Edited: Kay Walkowiak
Color Grading: Andi Winter
Production Assistant: Barbara Probst
Supported by: City of Salzburg, City of Vienna



︎ Archive Film