ME: It's interesting that it developed out of a business idea because, as you mentioned Sarah, it does retain a commercial aesthetic reminiscent of advertising and that world. In contrast with that though, there were elements on the screen that were incredibly sculptural, physical and bodily.

 

SC: I think it often feels like you have to go in two very extreme directions to make money through art. I don’t mean big money, I'm talking about earning a living. Having an art practice and making rent can be two quite polar experiences. So, I think that creating this platform for selling art, fashion, furniture and design pieces, and blurring the boundaries between experimental film that has feeling and content and a glossy advertorial was certainly the initial motivation. Since that is how it started, I think that's why it still has that hybrid effect. Harriet had a whole different take on it and different ideas as to what she wanted to achieve from it. I think this meeting of motivations gave it the strength and content that it has.

HF: We did gather a lot of images together when we were trying to work out what we wanted the aesthetic of the film to be. A lot of these were very glossy, well-photographed images that came from a variety of sources. Most of them were photographs by artists that were quite dreamy and slick that borrowed that commercial aesthetic. We didn't look at many commercials but we did look at fashion films and music videos. I've always felt that music videos are very seductive and that they're a weird mixture of commercials, art and music. It's a confusing genre and has historically been experimental territory. I am interested in the imagined space, a space where you can dream of alternative possibilities or imagine things differently. Advertising seems to have claimed that space and really capitalises on that desire to imagine one’s self and the world, but I like the idea of reclaiming it. 

 

SC: In relation to this imagined space, we also sort of doubled that by becoming completely obsessed with illusion and magic tricks. We even visited The Magic Circle, where old magicians did ropey tricks with red roses. There are essentially four acts in the film and they're all tricks or somehow deceptive or illusionary. Maybe we were both up for escaping into another universe!

 

HF: Also, the idea of being deceptive or tricking someone is perhaps more about revealing something. There is a disorientation that allows for something else to emerge somehow. We were trying to get close to the idea of the unknown or uncertainty.

 

SC: It felt like when we were working together a third person or entity arose. The amalgamation of the two of us was is a thing itself. We present another force at play throughout the film, a force that tussles with the protagonist or magician and tries to disrupt the tricks. You are required to relinquish some control when you work with someone else. Both of us had quite strong ideas about what we wanted and fortunately they quite often aligned or one person could persuade the other that their idea was worthwhile. It was quite a harmonious dynamic overall and we were both motivated to create this third thing, whatever or whoever that thing is.

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ME: The film is quite surreal and has a darkness to it. When we met in January at Block 336, we spoke briefly about how you might like to install the film to enhance these aspects of it. Could you talk more about this - if you could put the film in whatever setting you wanted, how would you choose to display it?

 

SC: Maybe at the end of a big, black wormhole in outer space.

 

HF: It would be interesting to show the film at the end of a long dark spiral corridor that you had to walk down to get to it. Or at the end of one of our shiny insulation tubes.

 

ME: If it were at the end of a tube, it might feel as though you were being physically sucked in to the screen.

 

HF: Yes, I think the whole physicality of the film and the bodily stuff in it is important. I'm interested in the idea of cinema being a space where you lose all sense of yourself in some respects - the whole room is designed for you not to be able to be aware of yourself so much; it's dark and muffled, you’re sunken into a soft chair. Everyone is looking in the same direction. You get sucked into that mirror I suppose.

 

SC: When the film was made and we had time to debrief, we both fantasised about installing it with the props and objects that are in it, or creating a similar dreamscape but in real space for real visitors. We hoped at some stage we could do that to emphasise that textural atmosphere that we created.