STREICHELEINHEIT (CARESS) – 2018, Kinetic sound object

Fakewhale in Dialogue with Pfeifer & Kreutzer

Since 2014, Pfeifer & Kreutzer have built a distinctive and nuanced artistic universe, one where each mechanical gesture, sonic vibration, or subtle interaction with materiality becomes a reflection on the fragile relationship between humanity and technology. At Fakewhale, we had the opportunity to speak with the duo about their deeply conceptual practice, which unfolds with precision between opposing forces: order and dysfunction, industrial materials and tenderness, automation and emotional fragility. What emerged is a conversation rooted in animated minimalism, machinic desire, and poetic failure.

Faklewhale: Your work often inhabits what you call a “non-binary space between multiple polarities“ failure and renewal, the human and the machine, motion and stillness. How essential is this conceptual instability in shaping the emotional and perceptual tension of your pieces?

Pfeifer & Kreutzer: The in-between is essential for us. We are not looking for fixed meanings or opposites, we are interested in what happens in the space between them. This is where tension, emotion, and complexity emerge. Instead of focusing on instability, we work with clarity and reduction. A clear framework gives space for different interpretations to unfold. We use elements like motion, sound or light, but there is always kind of a mystery, something uncontrolled. That’s where something alive can happen.

You’ve said that “reality is not a stable condition, but a fleeting moment.” How do you design your installations to cultivate this sense of instability and to trigger unexpected shifts in perception?

Our works often appear minimal at first glance: Just Squares on the wall, for example. But then you realize that they are moving very slow, constantly changing the position and the composition is in a constant state of change. We don’t have to design instability, reality already is quite unstable. Our task is to create artworks in which people can find themselves, something of their own reflected in the artwork, that can be very different for every person. We are not trying to illustrate instability, but to invite a moment of hesitation that sparks joy, the unexpected and surprise. When something familiar suddenly feels strange, or something strange feels familiar, those are the moments that stay with you.

Technology plays a dual role in your practice as both “tool and protagonist”. Your works rely on mechanics and precision, yet they welcome disruption. How do you navigate this tension between control and unpredictability in your creative process?

Technology plays a dual role in our work. It is both something we use and something we allow to act on its own. But we rarely use it for what it was made for. A windshield wiper is not wiping rain. It’s chasing a fluffy ball. A motor doesn’t power a tool. It powers a gesture, a repetition that doesn’t quite lead anywhere. We are interested in what happens when machines are taken out of their function. When they try, when they struggle, when they do something slightly wrong or unnecessary. That’s when they begin to feel alive. Not because they are smart, but because they fail in small, beautiful ways. Disruption is not a problem in our process. It’s part of the language. The pieces need electricity, they wear out, they require care. And sometimes they stop. But in these moments of uncertainty, something human becomes visible. A softness inside the system.

There’s a recurring sense of vulnerability, sensuality, and even humour in the way your machines behave, as if they had a personality. How consciously do you craft this sense of the human within the mechanical?

We look at the machine and watch how they move, how they struggle, how they repeat. Often, something appears that feels familiar. A kind of vulnerability. A strange tenderness. As if the machine is trying to communicate without knowing how. This is something we notice and look for. When we see it, we give it space. We let it happen again. We do not force it to be useful or correct. Maybe it feels human because it is not perfect. Because it tries and doesn’t always succeed. That is what draws us in. Something fragile, a little absurd, sometimes funny.

In works like the fur stroking windshield wipers or hands that never quite meet, the gestures feel both surreal and melancholic. What role does absurdity or subtle humor play in your exploration of longing and failure?

These actions of the works are simple, but they carry weight. They speak of longing, of effort, of something that remains just out of reach. Absurdity enters when a machine or an object tries to do something it was never meant or supposed to do. That mismatch creates a tension. It is also interesting how something can be very light for one person and quite heavy for another. For example our black boxes that move in rhythm. For some that sparks a light feeling of joy for the next it is spooky and reminds of something locked in.

In one of your video work series you play with temporal disorientation: Reversed motions that paradoxically move forward, blurring illusion and reality. What draws you to these disruptions of linear time, and what do they reveal to you?

In this video series, we move backwards through spaces that are often defined by transition: Bridges, staircases, streets. While walking in reverse, we look forward. Later, we reverse the footage, so that we appear to walk forward again. But something feels off. Water flows the wrong way, birds fly in reverse, cars and passersby behave strangely. The illusion only reveals itself over time. We like this subtle disruption because it creates a kind of time capsule. A portrait of a specific place in a specific moment, experienced both forward and backward. It documents the site and also us, as artists, at that precise time. The moment is held, yet already slipping away. It is this fragile simultaneity that shows time, it folds, repeats, contradicts. In these distortions, the now becomes visible as something already vanishing, already becoming memory even as we experience it and then its gone and the question remains: what’s left behind?

Your series Male Female explores how gendered perceptions shape the way artworks are received and valued. In what ways do questions of authorship, gender bias, and cultural projection influence your artistic practice today?

As an artist duo consisting of a woman and a man, we are also confronted with projections. People often try to read our works through the lens of our genders, asking who did what, who led, who followed. Often the conceptual thinking or the technical execution is attributed to the man, while the emotional or intuitive aspects are linked to the woman. The Male Female series grew out of these experiences. It asks the question: does the same work of art changes depending on who made it, a man or a woman?

We live in a culture that still leans heavily on binary categories. Even in art, which is often seen as a space of freedom. Male is read as conceptual, female as emotional. Male as author, female as muse.

This is also closely tied to the idea of the solitary genius, especially in the arts, which we oppose simply by working as a duo.

Your collaborations with the fashion world, including Vivienne Westwood’s show at Paris Fashion Week an Bottega Veneta’s digital journal introduce your language into very different contexts. How do these cross-disciplinary encounters shape your work, and what do they allow you to explore?

These collaborations were pretty amazing. To get a glance in the fashion world and meet with the people working there was interesting. However, we wouldn’t say that it has necessarily changed our work, but seeing the work in a different light was very enriching and of course, the fact that these two major fashion houses wanted to collaborate with us shows us that we are probably doing something that resonates and that confirmation is very encouraging.

How does your artistic process unfold between concept and intuition? Is there space for not-knowing, and how do you navigate it together?“

Sometimes we begin with a clear concept, but often at first there’s just an image, a question, a material impulse that leads us somewhere without telling us where. Intuition plays a big role in the early stages, but so does doubt. We talk a lot. Sometimes we try things before we understand why. Sometimes we keep things unresolved for a long time.

There is always space for not knowing. In fact, we try to protect that space, because that’s where the most interesting things can happen.

We work at different speeds, which can cause friction, but it also creates potential. Sometimes we misunderstand each other when talking about ideas, and these misunderstandings often lead to something unexpected. A serious thought may suddenly become humorous, and a playful remark can turn out to be meaningful. It’s a fluid process.

The important thing is to keep listening, to stay open to each other, and not to hold on too tightly. We try to follow what emerges, instead of forcing it into shape. Over time, the work begins to speak back. That’s when we move from exploration to decision.

What new questions are emerging in your practice, and what can you share about your upcoming projects?

At the moment, we are revisiting one of our earliest kinetic and sound-based works, originally created during Anne’s studies. We are preparing a new version of it for the artist biennale of the Künstlerverbund at Haus der Kunst in Munich. Returning to this piece feels important and necessary. Kind of unfinished business that allows us to continue something we began years ago, but now from a different place. At the same time, we have received some exciting invitations for upcoming exhibitions that bring new kinds of challenges. One of them is on the other side of the world, where we will contribute the concept for an ephemeral work. It will be built without us, exhibited without us, and most likely disappear without us ever having seen it in person. Due to political instability in the region, we probably won’t be able to travel there.

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Fakewhale in Dialogue with Pfeifer & Kreutzer

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Fakewhale in Dialogue with Pfeifer & Kreutzer

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