This is a two channel video installation about American consumption. Inspired by the ubiquitousness of obscenely large SUVs in Los Angeles (where such 'utility vehicles' hardly seem necessary), this video is created as a metaphor for the ritualization of consumption. Two diners sit opposite each other, not speaking, and eating a full meal. They use a new fork for each bite, discarding each once-used fork with every bite. The rituals of formalized fine dining - in which there are numerous utensils, and glasses - seem as outdated to me as the idea of material consumption and display as a means of signifying social prestige.
Pas De Deux, 2007 from Unicornkiller on Vimeo.
Alternative description:
Micol Hebron’s poetic meditation on the formality of social dining, Pas de Deux, is a two-channel video installation that explores the ritualized protocol of eating, and the unconscious and complicit gestures of excess and consumption that are prevalent in daily activities of western society. Projected on opposite walls, the diners do not speak or even gesticulate to one another, but instead seem focused on the methodic task of eating as they use a different fork for each bite. The video explores the diners’ simultaneous discomfort and indifference as their body language and demeanor speaks to the perpetual negotiation between private and public selves, between actions that are learned versus those that are innate, and between free will and obligation.