The film Smoke & Mirrors (2017-2018) revolves around projections, optics, fidelity and an attempt at slide technology preservation, while interweaving several reflections on recording and projecting devices and transitory non-places. The phrase Smoke & Mirrors derives from 18 and 19th century phantasmagoria shows, and more recently it is used as a metaphor for a deceptive, fraudulent or insubstantial explanation or description.

The film is often accompanied by an aquatic installation, Vessel: Yorktown Express (2017-2020) which consists of text/image composite prints and an assortment of slide projection lenses. In 2010 during an exhibition install in Los Angeles I came across an opportunity to purchase a large quantity of slide-related equipment. At the time I believed it was an act of preservation and good investment, but it would turn out to be neither. The text/image composite prints chronicle the transaction in a mixture of business bartering, customs jargon and image documentation of this failed investment.