Turgidity

New York-based artist Dirk Skreber is known for depicting natural disasters and catastrophic events with a calm detachment in paintings, sculpture, and video. Turgidity was filmed at an automotive testing facility during the making of one of his sculptures, which involves crashing a car into a steel pole. The video shows nearly four seconds of high-resolution footage from the crash, gradually slowed to a halt, and then reversed. The result is a mesmerizing slow-motion depiction of the car's destruction and the sculpture's creation. The soundtrack includes audio from the impact, as well as of the artist's heartbeat.