CAT 302.4D, video installation, 14h 21min, 2016

In the course of a work stay (Somewhere To Disappear, Symposion Lindabrunn), Pia Mayrwöger was provident with an excavator and the area. There the artist dug a pit for herself and the excavator in order to then dig herself up again. You can see this in a 14 hour and 12 minute video.

It shows a Caterpillar (model: CAT 302.4D) standing in a meadow. The artist enters the scenario. Barefoot, dressed in an ankle-length red dress, she gets into the construction vehicle and begins to steer the excavator. Under her guidance, this loosens a surface, roughly the size of the footprint of the excavator, and fills it up behind her. Then she drives into the recess that has just been created. The construction machine is turned by 180 degrees and again moves a volume roughly equal to the floor space of the excavator and piles it up behind it. Again the excavator is steered into the recess that has just been created. These steps are repeated until the excavator is so deep that it has reached an end point. No more earth can be moved onto the meadow, the hydraulic arm has reached its maximum movement profile. This turns out to be an important point of reference for the conceptual work. The excavator then digs its way out of the pit using the same method, but in reverse order.