Cross-fire
Natural Occurrence series

source: vimeo

The focus of the Past, Present & Future Craft practice commission was to examine the intangible characteristic of the spoken word and investigate the unseen affect of sound upon its inhabited environment.
The project centralizes around the context of a domestic argument. In this case the event samples an audio excerpt from the 1999 Sam Mendes Film ‘American Beauty’. The slow building dialogue between the three central characters family dinner climaxes with a sound clash of emotions. The cross-fire of the argument traverses the dinning table but where previously the inanimate everyday objects such as plates, cutlery, teapot etc were unable to express their character, the intensity of the conversation deforms their once static existence into objects of unseen familiarity.
The presented sound artifacts each encapsulate a momentary emotion of the argument.
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source: visualartsscotland

Geoffrey Mann is a Scottish artist and design lecturer whose fascination with transposing the ephemeral nature of time and motion has created a studio practice that challenges the existing divides between art, craft and design. In 2008, Mann was awarded the World Craft Council Prize for Glass and in 2009 won the Jerwood Contemporary Makers Prize. Mann has work included in MoMA New York, Design and Architecture collection and MAD New York, Design and Applied permanent collections. Geoff will be presented an animation and selection of objects from the ‘Crossfire’ series, the focus of which was to examine the intangible characteristic of the spoken word and investigate the unseen affect of sound upon its inhabited environment. ‘Crossfire’ has since been aquired by the British Crafts Council for their permanent collection.