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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 3 min excerpted from 14 min. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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For Kiss and Cry Laser worked with figure skating coach Marie Jonsson Mackenzie while she trained her two children, seven-year-old Anna and eleven-year-old Axel. Skirting the line between fiction and documentary, warm-up and performance routines are interwoven with scripted dialogue and voice-overs that trace the social construction of the innocent child. The script draws on family values rhetoric, progressive era propaganda and sociology texts on the history of childhood and child rights movements, as well as on Lee Edelman’s No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004). The underlying ideas were informed by the debates surrounding the culture wars of the 1990s when the imperative to protect children became an excuse for limiting the liberties of others.
“The kiss and cry” is a term that refers to the area to the side of the skating rink where coaches and competitors gather after performing to await the judges’ verdict––a media strategy invented to elicit empathy for the skaters.
Credits:
Video Editors: Liz Magic Laser and Naomi Spiro. Director of Photography: Nikolay Michaylov; Second Camera: Daniel Froidevaux; Camera Assistant: Dan White; Audio Engineer: Dallas Boyes; Sound Designer: Jakob Thiesen; Production Manager: Georgina Jackson; Production Assistants: Nick Torok and Andrew Hoekstra. Costume Adviser: Felicia Garcia-Rivera. Voice Overs: Boston Flannery and Jenna Iacono. -
Related Material+Liz Magic Laser at Mercer Union, akimbo, January 2016
Childhood Conditioning Crisis: Liz Magic Laser at Mercer Union, artfcity.com, December 2015
Interview with LML and A Will Brown, Studio International: Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, January 2016
Review by Sam Cotter, Flash Art, January 2016
Kiss and Cry Mercer Union Winter BrochureKiss and Cry Script Bibliography -
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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Kiss and Cry, Liz Magic Laser, 2015, single-channel 4K video, 13:30 minutes, video still. With figure skaters Anna MacKenzie and Axel MacKenzie and coach Marie Jonsson MacKenzie. Commissioned and produced by Mercer Union.
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