Jennifer & Kevin McCoy
Traffic

USA, 2004, installation

Courtesy: Collection Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, MUDAM, Luxembourg

Jennifer & Kevin McCoy live and work in Brooklyn, New York. Their work is held in museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MUDAM. They have exhibited internationally, including recent solo exhibitions at: BFI Galleries, London (2007); Galerie Guy Bartschi, Geneva (2006 and 2003); Edith Russ Haus for Media Art, Oldenburg (2006); Postmasters Gallery, New York (2006 and 2004); and FACT, Liverpool (2003). www.mccoyspace.com

Artistic collaborators Jennifer & Kevin McCoy have earned an international reputation for works that explore the strange realities of a hi-tech, mass-media society and bring fantastic worlds to life. Each of the four handmade tabletop miniature sets recreates the artists’ personal memories, each episode telling the story of a particular time, place or event that has become linked to the artists’ memories of viewing a specific film. The dioramas are equipped with live video cameras which film the action taking place on the tabletops: working models of both the film narrative and of the artists. The resulting video feeds are sequenced by special computer software that acts as the film editor, creating a real-time animated film sequence which is projected onto the gallery wall. The ‘plot’ in these works is as much about the McCoys experience of watching the films as it is about the films themselves.

One work in the series depicts the McCoys’ second date, when they went to see Godard’s film Weekend at a cinema in Paris. The miniature set shows the iconic traffic jam scene from the film, depicted with an endless lineup of toy cars, trucks and spectators in a fake grass landscape. The artists themselves are shown seated in the plush surrounds of a movie theatre, watching live video feed of this filmic recreation on a tiny cinema screen. Another diorama recreates an evening spent watching George Lucas’ American Graffiti on a standard-issue hospital TV set in the cardiac ward where Kevin recovers from an illness. Spielberg’s debut feature film The Sugarland Express is captured from the comfort of their own home and Bonnie and Clyde from an empty Texas bar.

With Traffic, the artists take ownership of cinema, claiming it as a personal space determined by the deep and memorable associations an audience has with particular film moments.