JETWASH / 5min / 360°

A red van is parked at dusk on the pier of Dover, the White Cliffs visible in the distance. Inside, a video plays on a computer screen: hands wrapping themselves in boxing gear, an orange bubble exploding in slow motion, and a small bird attacking its own reflection — scenes looping endlessly in a choreography of preparation, eruption, and self-confrontation.

A second video, projected onto an adjacent kiosk wall, was filmed in London and shows the van being jetwashed by foreign workers. The camera rotates slowly, capturing the van’s interior — boxing gear, books, film equipment — while catching the explosion in the loop unfolding onscreen. The loud, piercing sound of the jetwash cuts through the background noise of the city, accompanied by the repetitive, physical sounds of the migrant workers cleaning the van.

Together, the two videos form a looped, spatial dialogue between interior and exterior, past and present. The work reflects on migration, privilege, labour and confrontation, anchored in the van that served as Daniel Vollmond’s home and mobile studio in London for nearly four years.

Ein roter Kastenwagen steht in der Abenddämmerung am Pier von Dover, in der Ferne sind die White Cliffs zu erkennen. Im Inneren läuft ein Video auf einem Computerbildschirm: Hände wickeln sich routiniert in Boxbandagen, eine orangefarbene Blase explodiert in Zeitlupe, ein kleiner Vogel attackiert sein eigenes Spiegelbild – Szenen, die sich in einer Endlosschleife wiederholen: eine Choreografie aus Vorbereitung, Eruption und Selbstkonfrontation.

Ein zweites Video wird auf die angrenzende Wand eines Kiosks projiziert. Es zeigt, wie der Wagen von ausländischen Arbeitern mit einem Hochdruckreiniger gereinigt wird. Die Kamera rotiert langsam um ihre eigene Achse und erfasst das Innere des Fahrzeugs – Boxausrüstung, Bücher, Filmausrüstung – während sie zugleich die Explosion im Loop auf dem Bildschirm erfasst. Das laute, durchdringende Zischen des Hochdruckreinigers durchbricht das städtische Hintergrundrauschen, begleitet von den gleichmäßigen, körperlichen Arbeitsgeräuschen der Migranten, die den Wagen reinigen.

Gemeinsam entwickeln die beiden Videos einen räumlichen Dialog zwischen Innen und Außen, zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Die Arbeit reflektiert Migration, Privilegien, Arbeit und Konfrontation – verankert in dem Van, der Daniel Vollmond fast vier Jahre lang als Zuhause und mobiles Studio in London diente.

Rotate (Revolution 1)

The sound of an engine starting up. The camera judders ...almost every country on this planet... Boxing gloves to the right, dangling off kilter. The inside of a van. A series of clicks and a whoosh ...from Calais to Dover... A man appears at the window. Rivulets of water run horizontally down a windscreen ...I have the right passport... Clouds of white spray appear...distant traveller... A glimpse of the van driver’s ear ...he wants to understand... Knee pads. A screen at an oblique angle ...the world is not a fair place... Apple logo... an eruption breaks out in slow motion... A mechanical whir ...indignation... Soapy water fanned out ...give up all my privileges... PRIVATE VIEW CODY DOCK. Former West Art and the Contemporary After 1989. BOXERS. A picture of a bicycle. Headphones. Filming equipment. ...these men... Pillows ...do their job... Other men. Whirring ...exploiting a position of privilege... Rack of books. Whirring ...I wonder... broomhead working across the screen. Face appearing ...moved by a portrait... Soap suds gliding. Man in a cap.

Rotate (Revolution 2)

The van is taking off into space. No, it is returning to land. There is no rocket fire visible, and it is a slow motion descent, but it judders as the engine ignites and moves. A reflection of the van driver in the metallic door frame becomes apparent. Clouds of white spray, the shuttle is breaking through the atmosphere. Inside, the camera slowly pans over a select array of objects, an explorer’s life stripped to it’s essential parts, contained within a vehicle destined to travel only horizontally. This life is controlled and precise, offsetting the precarity of the immaterial labourer. It is a professional life, tipped on its side, set at odds to the norm. The ceiling is covered in silver sheeting, pinned at intervals. This space ship is retro futuristic, manned by a traveller whose only mooring is his vehicle, an immigrant adrift in a foreign city. The men washing this time capsule are immigrants too. Physical labour set to repeat on digital screen and vehicle screen (wash, rinse, wash, rinse, wash, rinse...) whilst the van driver performs his cognitive labour. A sideways plume of opaque liquid appears, spectacularly slowed, small spheres forming constellations in the air around it, constrained by the laws of gravity, has nowhere to go but down, back to where it came from.

Rotate (Revolution 3)

The van driver is set at a vantage point to the labourers. He rests, looking down upon their work. They move from shared rent to work to shared rent. The driver has a certain fluid freedom, for now, within the limitations of law and commerce, not all land is public. Even if I give up all my privileges, I can do nothing about the privilege that allows me to choose. The van driver knows his place in relation to the labourers. Yet the van driver also labours to think himself into the place of the jet washing men. This longing for parity is the beginning of a cut – the cutting of new paths across invisible demarcations.

Confront (Revolution 4)

The body of the van driver, surrounded by the body of the van, surrounded by the bodies of the labourers. The invisible scales of containment beyond: locality, city, nation, continent. The van has slipped across the lines that divide countries, over the channels that separate them. But now the van driver’s destiny is to be displaced and contained. The van driver’s movements will be circumscribed by a set of events beyond his control. A crisis, both personal and continental, will mark its lines out at all levels down to the body of the van driver himself. Deep and permanent lines. The language of law has bodily impact, the political materialises within circumscribed movements. [Two disembodied arms perform a ritual, boxing wraps are spun, hypnotically, in a circular motion, around and around the hands. A confrontation is coming.]

Repeat.

Kate Pickering PhD
Sheffield, September 2019.