(Mar 05) Digital video (3:42 min)
Soundtrack: Les Elles, "Miss Alzheimer"


The film opens with a small table set for a tea party, with 2 cups, 2 teapots, a plate of biscuits, milk, sugar, a tea strainer and several saucers crowded onto the tabletop. A pair of hands appear and hover above the table considering the arrangement of the unmatching tea-set and begin to move one or two pieces about. The accompanying music grows more frenetic as the hands begin to move faster and for some time systematically pour all the wrong things into the wrong receptacles, causing spillages and curdles. The music slows and with the table in leaking disorder, the hands slow to a contemplative hover once more and eventually are lowered, clasped, onto their lap.

This was originally another attempt to play with the idea that systemacity - when it's taken as far as it can go - paralyses activity, much like the Shapes Sequence film. But I find the finished film more compelling in the way it comically evokes the manic insecurity of an individual on her own, anticipating the arrival of some guest or other.