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I initially thought about different ways to tell the story of the Desk and Bookcase, and then I became interested in the idea of telling it as a silent film. I brainstormed ideas and thought that imagining the object itself being interviewed through intertitles, with each question answered visually through scenes from its imagined life, would be an interesting way to approach it.
The Met object: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/3141
I used The Met's Desk and Bookcase (American, 1760–90), made in Newport, Rhode Island, as my creative brief. Using image references, I generated the silent-film footage in FLORA, building the imagined world around the object through period-inspired visuals, intertitles, and sound.
The surviving footage ends with the question, “What were you made for?” The rest of the imagined interview became lost footage. Like many silent films from the early days of cinema, only part of this fictional film survives. We will never know what else the Desk and Bookcase might have told us.
P.S. I found out while making this that September 29 is National Silent Movie Day, which felt like a rather fitting coincidence.
Object Description
The Desk and Bookcase is an American piece made in Newport, Rhode Island, between 1760 and 1790. Made from mahogany, chestnut, white pine, yellow pine, yellow poplar, cedar, and brass, its monumental form combines a blocked desk with a towering bookcase, shell-carved details, drawers, and compartments for storing business and household records. The Met notes both the exceptional craftsmanship of Newport cabinetmakers and the object's connection to the destructive commerce of the Triangle Trade.
It was made in Newport, Rhode Island, between 1760 and 1790-before silent films existed.
Desk and Bookcase
American, 1760–90
Newport, Rhode Island
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Archive source: Utagawa Hiroshige, Miyanokoshi Station, ca. 1836, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, JP2500 — Public Domain.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/56923
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Stoer's impossible geometry was a great find. It feels like it was waiting for this.