Hexfluorosilicic
2015 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
9:58 minutes
Danielle Dean
Hexafluorosilicic acid is a type of sodium fluoride waste product that can be found in a large amount of widely available products such as cleaning fluids, toothpaste, rat poison, and drinking water. In Danielle Dean’s video Hexafluorosilicic , she mulls on this substance and its troubling co-option by modern society. In an indistinct US city, in an empty apartment, three characters (one of whom, unusually for Dean, is a white male) all wear brightly colored medical scrubs and undertake seemingly trivial and nonsensical experiments. The characters communicate with each other using the marketing language of products containing sodium fluoride: “complete care takes discriminating taste”, and “you can feel safer, hours longer, smile at yourself”. Their scripted lines are interspersed with intriguing over-laid visuals, brightly colored props, EDM and youtube-style “goo” videos – the filmic equivalent of “smoke and mirrors.” This is representative of the apparent disregard of the toxicity of Hexafluorosilicic (a substance that is banned in Europe) and the dangers it might bring. Laced throughout the video are repeated cuts to a mysterious doorway that the characters nervously peer into. We never see into the room, it’s contents remain ambiguous, and potentially dangerous. Hexafluorosilicic , points to the obfuscating system of healthcare, it’s management within the United States, and the desire for pearly white “healthy” teeth. These chemicals are promoted as “good for you,” but instead enforce beauty ideals and control upon us. In one part of the video we see an endless scroll of found/stock imagery which contains the substance, where Dean herself is pictured—everybody is complicit.
Danielle Dean creates videos that use appropriated language from archives of advertisements, political speeches, newscasts, and pop culture to create dialogues to investigate capitalism, post-colonialism, and patriarchy. Her work focuses on how subjectivity is constructed in relation to mass-marketed products, and how our behavior is molded by advertising. She also explores the dimensionality of materials and functions of technology through the lens of her own multinational background, and how they can be used as tools of oppression.
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