Lunch Special

Lunch Special Lunch Special presents a man and a woman sitting across from one another enjoying Thai food from take-out plates. The white surroundings and the transparent table create a stark contrast between the vibrant colors of the food and the austere environment. This contrast also highlights the silent communication between the two characters through the action of eating and helps to detaches the performance from any sense of place. The fifteen-minute video is photographed from an elevated position and offers a single vantage point. This distances the viewer from the action. The continuous, one-shot frame allows the viewer to focus intently on the minutiae of the meal. One minute into the meal, an overlay of text appears, which can reads like a short poem and is repeated over the course of the piece. By juxtaposing these two elements – the text and the photographed meal – Lunch Special is experienced as a meditative short film, marking time, place and the way we assign value to some moments over others. Lunch Special, 2011, is the first in a series of videos that engage with preconceived ideas about architecture, ritual, relationships, time, and place.

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