The Children's Tapes

Phenomenolgocial dramas involving household objects like candles, spoons, and matches, unfold with an extreme economy of gesture. Fox balances a spoon and a piece of ice on top of a bent fork. We watch as the ice melts and the spoon is thrown off balance and falls. Inventing new situations with the same objects, Fox posits these works as an alternative to commercial children's television—a critique of the pace of television, which never affords the time to see the processes develop. The play of objects in delicate flux with each other serves as a meditative exercise on the symmetry of physical forces. A wide angle camera lens delivers this intimate table top performance world to a larger audience. The sublime beauty of these elemental observations recalls the aesthetic of Fox's one-time mentor, Joseph Beuys.

This title is only available on Surveying the First Decade: Volume 1.