Ritual and Repetition

Coffee & Milk, 2005
2:45 mins
Mary Magsamen & Stephan Hillerbrand - Houston Texas

Coffee & Milk is an experimental video that explores communication and sexuality through the metaphor of everyday items, coffee, milk and children’s music. In Coffee & Milk our lives are transformed into something cinematic and larger than life. Images of Stephan blowing milk into coffee and Mary blowing coffee into milk are given an unexpected point of view because the camera is placed underneath them. The images reference both galactic and microscope images of something biological. This pseudo-scientific images provide the viewer with a window to see a personal and intimate moment frozen in time that eventually leads back to larger universal questions of communication between us as a couple. This communication is interrupted by the incessant call for attention from our daughter, which is represented through the repeated sampling of a song titled Water Dance by Raffi, the quintessential children’s musician.

Coffee & Milk addresses repetition through the physical repetition of altering images and resampled sounds. The images and sounds are constantly switching back and forth, repeating in a non-narrative manner. It addresses ritual through its originating idea of that everyday cup of coffee – the first daily ritual act in many people’s lives.

www.maryandstephan.com