696 Encounters

2026

696 Encounters / 696 Begegnungen (2026) is a five-minute moving image work that depicts a community of ants moving to-and-fro along the ledge of a railing against a blue sky, filmed by the artist. Compositionally, the picture plane consists of stark verticals and horizontals with the railing occupying the majority of the frame. Against this fixed architectural structure, the eye is drawn to the organic movement of the ants as they scurry backwards and forwards in and out of view, chaotic and organised at one and the same time. The scene shares a striking resemblance to traffic or people moving across elevated highways in dense urban spaces, recreated in miniature form. Unlike city congestion, however, the ants cluster, collide and crawl on top of each other, despite their reputation as a highly organised, purposeful insect society. Perhaps the work may invite contemplation on parallels between animal and human forms of social organisation.

A comical element is introduced with a Schoenbergian atonal keyboard soundtrack consisting of syncopated notes that seem to punctuate the ants’ collisions, in a manner reminiscent of the use of musical accompaniment to amplify moments of disorder in early screen comedy. Parallels can also be drawn to Pierre Huyghe’s gallery intervention Umwelt (2011), which similarly brought ants into the institutional environment, asking audiences to envisage non-human ecosystems.

Text: Georgia Gerson

Presented in exhibitions

Annka Kultys Gallery, 2026