Review: Lay Waste
Lay Waste, the most recent of Zander Padget's video works, ends with text popping up onto the screen, reading, "Don't pigeonhole me bro". Such seems to underscore the overall rebellious nature of this mysterious piece.
While Padget's previous videos Colorado Walk, My Warehouse and Wall Street offered meditations on movement, space and the body, in Lay Waste we see a move out of the conceptual and into the sensual. The music pounds a beat, the editing riffs and the compositions are mysterious, violent and sexy. The length of the piece, only 48 seconds, gives the piece an urgency which will attract audiences whose attention needs to be grabbed immediately and continually.
Lay Waste almost seems a teaser for something bigger to come. A flowering or bursting forth of some neglected reality. Early on in the short video, as the figure walks towards the camera there is a feeling of coming judgement, of a hellish retribution. I was reminded of Goya's Colossus (now believed to be painted by one of his students), for Padget's character seems capable of great and massive impact. It will be interesting to watch this developement in works to come.
don't pigeonhole him indeed
