11752 mètres et des poussières is a video which, for seventy-one minutes, follows the erratic course of a drop of water in close-up on a reflective surface. The soundtrack and the reflection of the sky indicate that the footage was shot outdoors—more precisely, on the roof of a water tower. With the mechanism setting the droplet in motion rendered invisible, the latter seems to take on a life of its own. We see it absorbing its fellow drops one after the other, stop and then start up again with greater speed. At times the camera has trouble following this capricious being’s unpredictable movements. Indeed, the artist explains that the shooting conditions were similar to those of a wildlife documentary, with the artist’s camera adapting to the droplet’s unruly movement while also keeping itself (and its reflections) out of the frame in order to convey some sense of a “natural” environment.

Beyond its quasi-scientific observation mechanism (one thinks in particular of the 1923 volume by A.M. Worthington, The Splash of a Drop, which attempted to objectively observe the dynamics of liquids hitting glass plates), the video raises a philosophical question: while we appear to be following one drop of water—to the point of almost endowing it with a personality, or at least an identity—how can we be certain we’re seeing the same drop at the video’s beginning and end? This question recalls the myth of the Ship of Theseus: this ship, on which Theseus returned victorious from his battle with the Minotaur, was preserved by the Athenians who, as it deteriorated, replaced its parts one after the other. In the end, the ship did not change (in place or appearance), but none of its parts were original. We thus ask: is it the same ship?