Digital video (color, sound), 1:55 min.
Utensils: sterling silver, fork: 1 3/16
x 9 1/8 x 1 5/8" (3 x 23 x 4 cm);
spoon: 1 5/8 x 9 1/8 x 2 13/16" (4 x 23
x 7 cm); knife: 13/16 x 9 3/8 x 1 5/8"
(2 x 24 x 4 cm); plate: porcelain, 10 3/16
x 11 x 3 1/2" (26 x 28 x 9 cm); teapot:
porcelain, 8 11/16 x 11 13/16 x 9 1/8"
(22 x 30 x 23 cm); wineglass: glass,
9 1/8 x 5 1/8 x 5 1/8" (23 x 13 x 13 cm)
Cross-fire, directed by Geoffrey Mann
and produced by Chris Labrooy, takes
an audio excerpt from Sam Mendes’s
1999 film American Beauty—a heated
argument between Lester and Carolyn
Burnham (Kevin Spacey and Annette
Bening)—and animates it, so that the
tension that tears across the room
appears to be felt literally by the objects
on the dining room table. There are no
human bodies in the animation, only the
voices of the characters and the music
of Bobby Darin in the background; the
fight’s relentless sound waves are
absorbed and transferred across the
table through the silverware, glasses,
and dishes. With this film Mann explores
the effect of the sound of speech on
familiar objects—in this case with forms
increasingly warping as the fight escalates.
Cross-fire was commissioned
by Past, Present & Future Craft Practice
(PPFCP), a research project based at
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art
and Design, University of Dundee,
Scotland.
