Death Drive (excerpt), 2013
two-channel video with sound, 7:37
In Death Drive, the artist juxtaposes two moving images: one filmed from the perspective of a driver traveling through the Grand Canyon, the other depicting a car stuck in reverse. Accompanied by a warped LP recording, the paired videos unfold without clear beginning or end, suspending forward progress and resolution.
The work takes its title from Sigmund Freud’s concept of the death drive, a force that describes behavior counter to self-preservation. Here, disorientation and repetition signal an awareness that trajectories—both physical and psychological—rarely proceed in straight lines, unfolding instead within an unstable present where control continually shifts.
— Julie Dickover