The MacGuffin Library (2008)
Text, Polymer Resin, Video
In collaboration with Noam Toran and Keith Jones.
Commissioned for Wouldn’t it be Nice at Somerset House, London.
A term attributed to Hitchcock, the MacGuffin is a cinematic plot device, usually an object, that serves to set and keep the story in motion despite lacking intrinsic importance. For this project, the MacGuffin is seen as a unique object typology, existing within the constraints of cinema, and defined in shape and function to achieve the singular purpose of driving a filmic narrative.
The MacGuffin Library proposes the foundations for a library of MacGuffins, produced by first authoring a series of film synopses that are used to inform a collection of objects to be designed, manufactured and catalogued. The film plots address themes stemming from a disparate range of interests and inspirations: re-enactments, unorthodox fantasies, Borges and Carver short stories, forgeries, urban myths, high- and low-brow cinema, alternative histories, and the relationship between media and memory.
The objects are made out of a black polymer resin using a rapid-prototype machine. There is an essential, necessary subversion in this approach to production, as an advanced fabrication and manufacturing technology is being juxtaposed with the imaginary through the creation of fictional objects for nonexistent films. Through the industrial process, detailing and materiality, the pieces produced sit in an unnatural space, challenging their status as art objects, being neither ‘products’, nor ‘sculptures’, nor ‘props’, but an amalgamation of all three.
Elvis Was Here (2008)
Mixed Media
Elvis Was Here is an Elvis-themed workshop hosted at primary schools throughout the UK. It aims to break the world record for the ‘most Elvis impersonators in one location’ by training children up to the minimum standard of quality that would officially define them as Elvis impersonators. Working with legendary Elvis tribute artist Paul Richie, each class-based activity is designed to combine the structure of a ‘year four’ primary school curriculum and the three basic acts of impersonation: act-alike, look-alike and sound-a-like. In doing so it addresses and investigates questions concerning the legal definition of impersonation and legacy, identity and authenticity in an alternative context.
The first ‘Elvis Was Here’ day took place at St Saviour’s Church of England primary school in Herne Hill, London.
Hari & Parker (2007)
Mixed Media
In collaboration with Anthony Burrill and Wilfrid Wood. Commissioned for The Science of Spying exhibition at the Science Museum, London.
Hari & Parker is the design and realisation of a speculative government campaign aimed at encouraging children to commit subtle acts of domestic surveillance. The campaign is based around cute surveillance characters Hari & Parker. The duo feature in their very own children’s books, a range of lollipops, release their own surveillance pop music and have a range of fully functioning spy toy merchandise.
Postponing the Inevitable (2007)
Film shot on 16mm
In collaboration with Noam Toran.
Postponing the Inevitable is a short film presenting alternative interpretations on the theme of near-death. Based on true stories, the film’s three chapters Falling, Faking and Freezing sit conceptually between traditional cinematic storytelling and an ambiguous space of visual representation, asking the viewer to interpret the clues provided: a garbage collector is photographed by a woman for an unknown purpose; a man walks backwards and forwards at the beach; a hospital contains a lone patient. Postponing the Inevitable recently screened at Rencontres Internationales and Britspotting Film Festival.