Coping Mechanism is a still from a short film made for the 2013 Title Art Prize award ceremony in Manchester, UK. The stop-motion film features sections of the body that loop around a central scene. Two red threads emerge from the gap where the tooth ought to sit. The audio pumps with the beat of a heart, overlayed with laboured breathing as the red lines continue to extend, striving to envelop something. As the struggle continues, the threads expand, becoming a complex tangle of red and blue cords. The threads pull the object toward the face. The camera pans up to reveal that my face has now transformed, and the wound-space is no longer a missing tooth but an exposed trachea.

 

The work can be viewed here.