Conversations in Drift is a text-based project, that brings together short fragments that follow no fixed order and can be arranged freely.

At its centre is Drifter, a gender-fluid taxi driver from an imaginary Vienna in the year 2099. Drifter’s voice weaves autobiographical traces, fictional scenarios, and theoretical fragments into an open, organically growing body of text in which matter, emotion, and technology merge – and materials become characters of their own.

The material reflections are based on generated AI poems, serving as an attempt to create distance from the human gaze and to open the text towards non-human forms of perception.

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D. injects pure epinephrine.
The heart hits back, violently alive for a second too long.
The blood sharpens. The world opens like a wound.

One shot of adrenaline for the last hours of driving around should do its job.
Every time D. presses down the plastic syringe, it feels forbidden.
That’s half the reason they’re doing it at all —
as if anyone were restricting humans from anything anymore.

There are no restrictions for cab drivers anymore, because the only ones who can get hurt are the humans.
The ruling species are not as fragile when it comes to a crash.
And human existence is becoming more and more irrelevant,
caused by the rise of equality
between all creatures living on the planet.

So the leading forces decided that it is free for each individual to choose for themselves.
Most humans born after the fall of the Humanitarian Era thought that this was something frightening.
But Drift always thought — it’s liberating.
To feel like the center of the universe is a pressureful thing.
We are such a needle in the hay, they think.

At Schwedenplatz, the air is full of smog.
The streetlights flicker as if they were breathing.
D. waits for the next passenger,
though part of them hopes no one will arrive.

Some humans — the ones who still care about their flashy body parts — buy all-surrounding protection for public transport. It’s made out of spider web and creates a shell that guarantees a certain level of safety.

The streets are messy out there.
Especially since some figures of Species X find joy in stopping fast-moving cars on the inner-city highways with their own fluid presence — sticky enough to stop a wheel from spinning.

To feel the weight of the car on oneself feels like an orgasm, which is a forbidden treat within Species X.
They like to think of themselves as one, and if one X embraces such an immense, pleasurable energy, all the other Xs suddenly lack it.

That’s why they perform a traffic accident from time to time.
What can cause the death of a human body can be a rebellious act of liberation for others.

Fiberglass, for example, has developed its own strange fascination with collapse.
The impact is not seen as destruction, but as a kind of choreography —
a brief permission to release tension.
When two vehicles collide, the fibers hum before they split.
For a fraction of a second they experience what they call perfect pressure:
a total alignment of their inner structure with the outer force.

No pain, no pleasure — just pure exchange.
The air enters the cracks like a language they understand,
a translation from weight into vibration.

Fiberglass believes that breaking apart is a way of remembering what it was made for:
to stretch, to bind, to hold light — and eventually, to let it go.

After an accident, fragments of it scatter across the road,
sparkling like powdered daylight.
Humans call the phenomenon debris-lust.
But among the materials, it is considered a form of release —
a sacred ritual of returning.

X

X

They found out about the only way it was fun to have sex with straight men. Strict conditions. So they swore to themselves that it would only happen in public spaces from then on. Exclusively.

The day they met, D was driving the guy deep into the navigation system. He was sitting in the back, staring through his metallic hands into her gut. It felt scary — but also right. So she decided to take him down the road to the center, where it was so hard to enter, but through an inner pact, they both agreed that it was going to be worth the try. Kicking him out of the silver car was just the first step. They couldn’t enter the gate with such an official car. The deep dark secret had been known since most Viennese people stopped having physical bodies. So that was what they had to do first: leave all flesh behind to find the purest pleasure of it again.

She was dressing herself for the last time. It felt scary and sexy, like the last taboo there was left. The mistake of every step was clear to them, but he was also convinced that he had to be overcome that night.

The touch of her toe when she slipped inside the layers hurt a bit. It stretched my fragile structure to the fullest. But I allowed it to D, as an act of loyalty. We became a union over the time of her wearing me. It reminded me of those days when my particles were still under the surface of Planet A. As we were now on Planet B, it must have been a few million years ago — but actually, it was even more. The post-punk humans — how she liked to call them — still measured their time in seconds, minutes, days, and years. They were still chained to their binary way of thinking, which to me, of course, didn’t make much sense, as I was older than the construct of time. And if you let it, it bowed down underneath you.

Such an intense feeling, that she felt it too and decided to make it the only piece of clothing necessary to wear for the underground trip. At the entry door, close to where Loos Bar used to be. As they had drifted since 2025, they remembered it pretty well. What was now an electromagnetic field spa — one of the best in town — had then been a place of ironic encounters.

She stepped out of the car — in her still human body — enjoying wearing thighs only. As their material touched the ground, it immediately became nervous. But that didn’t mean emotional in the way the post-punk humans would feel it. They noticed it more as a sensation that was felt somewhere else in the city. Maybe a baby had just been born through the universal tele-channel. They got ordered through the former Wi-Fi net quite regularly. The fact that all human babies born this way automatically had three parents was the best-selling argument.

Shared parenthood was such a good argument in times like that.

As Drift was still hungry, it was time to act toward that feeling, the one somehow sitting in her backbone, weirdly squeezed by their prison guards made of bone.

So they called a friend together to pick the guy up from where he was hiding. It was certain that he had been watching all the time. Because they were both still stuck in the system of it, it was obvious that they had felt their coexistence inside the system during the whole time of being apart. When Drift forced him to go out of the car into the cold Viennese air of the 15th district, it must have been minus 80 degrees or something. Very cold. Very foreplay.

Drift was definitely afraid of him, but also very tempted by the whole concept of becoming bodyless with him for the first time. It was such a brutal act — not even those blood-sucking vampires had ever suggested going down that road together. It must have been 33 years ago that she had felt this spicy. Of course, she would just turn into material after leaving her fleshy body behind. But what would happen to him — they wondered for a second. As the cab arrived, the wondering immediately stopped. Drift thanked their friend who was driving the cab. “Thanks for the delivery,” she joked, and made a note in her brain to pay them back with forty-five crystal water drops next time they met.

The guy didn’t seem nervous at all — and he wasn’t very attractive at first sight. But in his deep brown eyes there lay a certain brokenness — the one all straight men had when they were intelligent enough. That had turned her on when his eyes met her nervous system a few hours ago in Drift’s silver cab. They didn’t even speak about anything concrete. All the words were spoken in this playful way; they had lost their meaning years ago and had been stuck in one another’s brain systems ever since. So it felt really good to just speak them out loud again — together. It was the most monogamous feeling Drift had had for a long time. It was almost too much for them, and he was thinking about running away — towards the cab station where their shiny Lotus was parked.

But they would have been so disappointed if D had arrived without a good story about being bodyless. Lotus was an extreme car. Its seats, especially, were addicted to human feelings that manifested inside their bodies. That was why they always pushed. Drift and Lotus had been sticking together on the roads for five years or so. None of them celebrated timelines — an inside joke between the two.

His kiss felt strangely familiar. From there on, it was important for her to take control from time to time, as she couldn’t trust him — at all. Still, she liked her naïve thinking that it wasn’t going to be the end, and that the guy wouldn’t take her complete light all at once. But the reality was that you never knew. They were both following and enjoying their inner brain streams.

Lotus was satisfied with the fearlessness of their bodies melting into each other. Drift told him about the plan of going to the most public space in the first district — the Stephans Dome. He seemed to be driven by a strange navigation living somewhere in his body anyway — and agreed.

They entered together and sneaked through the big queue. “That’s so Paris 2029,” Drift said. Even though she was sure he was one of those half-AI-generated humans who had come on the market thirty years later. But it was all about playing — as it should be.

When they passed the reliquary, they both agreed this was the right moment to go one step further. Drift was first to watch him get undressed. It was embarrassing to him, as there were a lot of very old objects and elderly people watching. All of them agreed that it was embarrassing to have a body and treat it with so little respect — so they agreed this was why the guy deserved to be watched.

So Drift told him to remove everything: the pants, the shirt, the tie — but slowly. And after he was just flesh and bone, they started to decompose as well. That was what this place was known for — one of those business ideas that really paid off in every chapter of the Chthulhian world system. No blood, no pain, for those brave enough to let go. It was all temporary, of course, but the risk that your particles would run away was high. Of course, they behaved like teenagers from time to time and just left it all behind — that was the danger of it.

Now, as he was completely body-home-less, it was Drift’s turn to follow. So she turned around and walked the stairs up to the pulpit so that she was visible to all the living material inside the former church. Drift wasn’t pulling back — she had tried several times in her life to be so, but it had never felt right.

It felt insanely pure to get undressed inside a former church. After her naked skin removed itself from the bones, they all really saw her. And Drift was surprised by the core of it all — shallow, little, shiny.

That really was what kept it all together, they thought. As naked as they could be, bodyless, she and he met in the center of the building to perform something generally known as union. Without fleshy bodies, it was a very obscure thing to do, but for the first time in a very long time, that was exactly why it felt right.

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Drift ist heute etwas unreif und bereit, es zuzugeben. Vor Kurzem hat sie jemand überreif genannt, was ihn unangenehm berührt hat. Es ist doch unerhört, jemanden den natürlichen Prozess des Alterns an den Kopf zu werfen. Der Mann im Rückspiegel meinte es klar vorwurfsvoll, als wäre sie die einzige davon betroffene Materie. 

Es fault doch alles gemeinsam vor sich hin. 

Der Parkplatz vor dem Parlament ist wieder frei. Drift hat Hunger. Es Bevor sie in der perfekten Haltung vor dem Parlament platziert wurde, war sie ein Körper aus Fleisch. Dann traf sie ein göttlicher Funken und aus Fleisch wurde Stein und Blut. Die versaute Nostalgie. 

Von außen betrachtet scheinen Steine lange die Form zu behalten. Selbst wenn sie Austragungsort vieler innerer Kämpfe sind. 

Wie zum Beispiel die großen Brocken von Laaser Marmor die Kammern des Parlaments verkleiden. 

Sie findet das Gebäude an sich ganz nett aber auch unangenehm unmündig. Es sollte sich dringend emanzipieren. Seit Jahren muss Pallas-Athene dabei zusehen wie sich diese Beziehung zu Dr Karl Renner hält. Peinlich. 

Oder täusche ich mich? Nein. Ich beobachte wie das Material selbst über den weiteren Verlauf entscheidet. Es bröckelt vor Scham.

Das muss sich anfühlen wie das Leben in einer Ameisenstraße. Dabei sollte sich Karl R. schämen. Dabei sollte sich Karl Renner schämen, nicht sie. Eine unangenehme Nebenwirkung in manchen Beziehungen ist es, sich für das Verhalten der anderen Person zu schämen.

In kitschig übertriebene Ausdrucksweise: Schneller werden die umhüllenden Steine kleiner, die Falten werfen gerade noch Schatten, als wäre der Stoff ganz weich. Das Gold des Helmes verflüchtigt sich. Da steht sie – lebendig geworden – und klettert hinunter auf die Straßen.

Sie gibt ihren Platz nicht auf, macht nur einen Spaziergang durch den ersten Bezirk, besucht den Samstagmittag.

Die Passanten bemerken sie kaum. Niemand scheint nach einer Statue zu suchen die ihren Sockel verlassen hat. Am Ende des Rings bleibt Athene stehen, schaut zurück auf das Parlament und greift nach Karls Hand. Sie streichelt seinen Handrücken und trennt dann den Ringfinger ab. Ich habe mich nicht getraut, es mitanzusehen. 

Es gibt kein Blut und keine Wunden zu sehen. Im Hintergrund ein Gebäude ohne Begleiter.

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Ihre Aufmerksamkeit schwankt zwischen dem Gespräch auf der Rückbank und der Straße.

Die Sprechenden erhöhen ihr Tempo. Es ist vom Rhythmus ausgehend einem Streit zuzuordnen. Drift bleibt mit ihrer Aufmerksamkeit nicht zu lange bei den Emotionalitäten der fremden Menschen und zerlegt die Gesprächsfetzen lieber in abstrakte Geräusche, die sich mit dem Geräusch der künstlichen hergestellten Regentropfen mischen, die an der Panzerglas-Scheibe abprallen. Seit häuftiger Alien Inversionen, haben alle Taxis in Wien solche Scheiben. Die meisten Aliens nutzen gerne die menschliche Infrastruktur zu Reise, die Scheiben schützen sie dabei vor den hasserfüllten Taten der Erdlinge. Insgesamt folgt die Szene aus Drifts Perspektive einer übergeordneten Ästhetik, die den eigentlichen Umstand ausblendet, dass auf der Rückbank zwei ihm unidentifizierte Wesen sitzen und sich um ein Stück Semmel streiten. 

Da die Regentropfen kein Rückgrat haben, bestimmt ein ständiges Biegen und Formen ihre Existenz. Deswegen sind sie magisch voneinander angezogen. Sie haben es sich sehr angetan. Das scheinbar zufällige Aufeinandertreffen folgt einem Rhythmus, der über Zufälligkeit hinauszugehen scheint. Es geht um eine größere Sache, der sie alle dienen. Selbstlos geben sie ihre flexiblen Körper auf, ohne über die Konsequenzen nachzudenken.  Zu kurz bildet sich ihre Existenz, als dass sie sich in Menschen gemachte Systeme einordnen ließen: Kolonialismus, Nationalstaat, Patriarchat, Kommunismus, Anthropozentrismus. Sie funktionieren in solchen, aber auch weit außerhalb. Parallele Welten, die in einer Abhängigkeit zueinander stehen.

Kafka: Im Zustand der scheinbaren Funktionslosigkeit legen sie sich auf Gregors Rücken und sind doch die Ordnung selbst. Oder eher das Symptom einer Ordnung?

Drift fährt durch die Löcher dieser Ordnung. Es kann ihm nicht löchrig genug sein. Ohne Lücken kein Durchkommen: Stau. 

Sie breiten sich auf dem Dach des Autos aus, ziehen sich zurück.
Scheinbare Hypnose.
Wie frisch geschlüpfte Fleischfliegen tänzeln sie in nicht nachvollziehbaren Bewegungen an der Kante des Glasfensters.
Instinktive Handlungen.
Wieder das Übergeordnete.

Drift öffnet das Fenster. Die anderen berühren ihre Haut. Und reagieren anders. Sie fühlen andere Möglichkeiten ihres Formwandels. Die offenen Poren, die haarige, unebene Oberfläche. Die metallischen Teile, die unter der Haut versteckt sind, bieten überraschende Momente. Drift besteht aus ungefähr 40% Metall. Aber die meisten ihrer Körperteile sind menschlich - insgesamt ist Mensch sein eher zu einer Identitätsfrage geworden.

Kann ein offen gebliebenes Fenster genug Beweis sein für eine Existenz?
Ist sie eben hinauf gekrochen oder hinein?

Sie erreichen das Ziel der Fahrt: das Outro.  

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Nanna Kaiser, 2025
nannakaiser1991@gmail.com