Operating in the space between what we hear and what we see, Christian Marclay’s work is informed by his interest in the relationship between the audible and the visible. In today’s culture, however, the visual routinely tops the audible, having penetrated to the culture’s core through cinema, television, and the Internet. While paying homage to some of the greatest movies in film history in his typical cut-and-paste technique, Marclay’s video Telephones also manages to break down long-established barriers between the realms of sound and image. The video consists of a long sequence of movie clips, in which famous actors like Cary Grant, Tippi Hedren, and Sean Connery are talking on the telephone. Similar to Marclay’s well-known album cover pieces, the video is woven together like a collage. Spanning several decades and cinematic genres, it combines countless segments from classic Hollywood films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder and Psycho with scenes from contemporary blockbusters. The collaged clips add up to one long, extended phone call with its own distinctive rhythm and narrative. A repetitive string of hellos, that remain unanswered, segues into a series of absurd “I see” remarks to end in an accelerated almost staccato frenzy of hang-ups. The short rapid cuts in Telephones not only encourage a viewing of the piece as video art but also as a musical composition, breaking down barriers between the realms of the audible and the visible. Activating the intersection of image and sound in this way, Telephones introduces contemporary video art’s complex relationship to mainstream narrative cinema.