Drifter

2017

Drifter is represented by PACE GALLERY

A performative installation of a floating concrete block
Mixed media with concrete, robotics, tracking system
4 x 2 x 2 m (L x W x H)
Drifter is made in collaboration with SkySpirit technologies.

Drifter is an installation consisting of one floating concrete block. The sculpture floats and moves at slow speed on a controlled three-dimensional path. With great accuracy, it creates a performance in its space.

This concrete monolith represents a basic building unit, the primary element by which human built environment is constructed. On its own the concrete block is nothing, lost in space and time without reference to anything; it is always searching to be part of something bigger. Drifter wants to make people feel that without context they are lost. Without context, the object feels alien, divorced from its source. Moreover, Drifter shows how unknown the world and its mechanisms still are to mankind and emphasises the urge to expand our horizon and evolve in time.

Drifter also refers to the book Utopia (Thomas More 1516). This novel mentioned concrete for the first time. Back then, concrete was ‘just’ a science fiction idea which centuries later became the foundation of our society. With Drifter we want to evoke a reaction to dream the improbable. Who knows, our next idea might be the foundation for our new world. 

Read more: 
Vice – Think Giant Concrete Blocks Can’t Fly? Think Again
New York Times – In Miami, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s … a Flock of Drones?
Ted Talk – Nature, Art and Magical Blocks of Flying Concrete | Lonneke Gordijn