Presented under the genre of the ‘dance film’, Croft’s Comma 39 harnesses cinematic manifestations of desire, pathos and obsession through the dramatic use of sound, lighting and movement. Research and development for the project incorporated a broad matrix of cultural languages unusual for the field, key among which were the MGM musical films of the 1950s. Furthermore, references to the iconic images of ‘film noir’, the cinema of Jean Cocteau, classical ballet, and the vocabulary of the music video were woven together to create one harmonious filmic output. Involving close collaboration with professional choreographers, Croft’s methodology was acutely informed by the conventions of cinematic production design and the musical score.
Significantly, the work challenges the affective potential of the Hollywood musical film by subjecting it to the recurring film-loop, thereby preventing it from reaching a traditional dramatic climax. Croft examined how cinematic tropes of pure emotion can be recontextualised within the visual framework and fluid viewing-parameters of the contemporary art gallery. His research analysed what occurs to the narrative basis of cinema when it becomes inherently circular.
Bloomberg LP commissioned the work for its contemporary Comma series and production for this project was underpinned by consultancy from dance agency Portland Green Cultural Projects and The Place, one of the UK’s leading dance organisations.
Comma 39 was an official selection of ‘Outcasting: Fourth Wall Artists’ Moving Image Festival’ curated by Michael Cousin and Ruth Cayford, Cardiff (2012)’ and was also featured in a solo exhibition curated by David Thorp at Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing, supported by British Council China (2013).
A text on Comma 39, written by chief art critic of the Guardian, Adrian Searle, was commissioned on the occasion of the work’s first exhibition at Bloomberg SPACE (2011).