Text by CLOT Magazine
If you are in NYC right now, there are still 3 nights left to catch the new Midnight Moment Takeover at Times Square by artist duo DRIFT (Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta) with filmmaker Sil van der Woerd.
Running every day until December 30, from 11:57 pm to midnight, the famous big screens in times square project massive concrete blocks drifting through the surreal and dreamlike natural landscapes of the Scottish Highlands in Drifters. DRIFT and van der Woerd’s Midnight Moment is co-presented with Creative Exchange Agency, a creative and cultural agency representing multidisciplinary artists across the fields of art, culture, design, photography, and film.
One moss-covered block floats through a forest; another emerges, dripping, from a peaceful lake; another hover above sheer cliffs and remote greenery. Juxtaposed against the natural backdrop, the constructs represent life forms attempting to find purpose and context within a world where they don’t belong. As they travel through misty vistas and the ruins of cities, thousands of these blocks eventually come together, seamlessly integrating into a built structure and asking whether the individual can truly disengage from the collective. Synchronized on over 80 electronic billboards each night in December, the film both contrasts and connects to the built environment of Times Square.
These floating concrete blocks have come to define DRIFT’s oeuvre, which uses kinetic and experiential work to illuminate parallels between human behaviour, technology and nature.
Drifters is included in DRIFT’s current solo exhibition, ‘ Fragile Future’ at The Shed, presented by Superblue and The Shed. In the exhibition, the artists take audiences on a journey through a series of interconnected installations – exploring the universal search for origin, destination, and connection and the power to be found in relinquishing control when embracing change. DRIFT offers hopeful futures and alternative perspectives to our understanding of the Earth’s makeup.
