While studying phonetics and the physical mechanics of forming speech, the phrase “Stop the Voice, End the Movement” is used to indicate the end of speaking and the start of silence. In “Cross Examinations” this phrase, spoken by a male and female, is used as the raw material to create rhythmic sounds traveling around the space by sixteen computer controlled audio speakers creating a unique sound space..
The legal term of cross examinations is to “interrogate” or formally question. Taking the other meanings of “cross”, is “to pass in an opposite or different direction”, or “to be annoyed”, the video is woven with the sound intended to display the fractures in our society today.
One video is projected by two projectors side by side with one of the images being projected as a mirror image. With one exception, the video material gives no reference as to right or left. Which is the real image and which is false? The video image is surrounded by sixteen speakers.
The text (the only image on the video that has a reference of which image might be mirrored), gives instructions on how we use our teeth, tongue and lips to form the speech sounds in the video. These details of our unconscious method of speaking is an attempt to engage the viewer of the complexities of speech.
Art With Held --- David Held 