Moving themes

Living with Video is a show that celebrates exciting, contemporary video art through the works of ten leading artists from around the world. Curated by Chantal Crousel, founder of Galerie Chantal Crousel, the show features cutting-edge works by Jennifer Allora, Guillermo Calzadilla, Fikret Atay, Wang Bing, Mona Hatoum, Hassan Khan, Melik Ohanian, Gabriel Orozco, Anri Sala and Wolfgang Tillmans.

"These are all well-known artists who work with various media. But I have foc-used on their video works because I wanted to show a medium that is not very well known as an art form in this region. Contemporary artists have embraced this medium because there are ideas or moments that have touched them that cannot be expressed in any other way except through the moving image and sound. My aim as a curator was to show the many different forms of video art, ranging from conceptual and narrative videos to 3-D animation on a hard disc and other technological experimentation," Crousel says.

The works she has selected express various moods, messages and ways of thinking. Some are deeply emotional such as Sala's Time After Time which features a lone, emaciated horse standing on a highway. As cars pass by, the terrified animal is briefly illuminated by their headlights and then becomes a blur in the darkness.

Others are light-hearted such as Air Cushioned Ride by the same artist. This one is based on his experience of a disturbance in the reception of his car radio caused by a group of trucks in a particular area that resulted in an amusing mix of baroque chamber music and country music. "This work is about a moment of consciousness and an experience that can only be expressed through the medium of video," Crousel says.

Similarly, Tillmans's video titled Peas combines a visual of peas boiling in a pot in his kitchen with the sound of a priest's sermon coming in through the window. The movements of the peas in the boiling water seem to follow the ups and downs in the passionate sermon, making a witty statement about religious fundamentalism and its effect on modern society.

Allora and Calzadilla's message is political and uses stories of two individuals to speak about the struggle of the people of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, to reclaim their land from the control of the United States military. Under Discussion follows fisherman Carlos Zenon as he drives along disputed coastal areas in a boat made from a table turned upside down. And Returning a Sound features Homar, who has altered the muffler of his motorcycle to produce a trumpet-like sound to call his people to action. Their video, Half Mast/Full Mast, presents a patriotic message through visuals of young people perched like flags on a flagpole that extends across two different landscapes.

Chinese filmmaker Wang's Man with No Name tells the story of a man who has chosen to isolate himself from society. The man, who talks to nobody and survives on the bare minimum, is a symbol of the political and economic pressure that deprives people of their dignity, and of the strength of the human spirit. And in Goaall, Turkish artist Atay's video of barefoot children playing football on the road, the asphalt road is a symbol of modernity and progress.

Some of the videos are deeply personal, such as Lebanese artist Hatoum's Measures of Distance, which explores themes of identity, sexuality, exile and dislocation. The video is inspired by the letters her mother wrote to her from Beirut while Hatoum was forced by circumstances to live in London.

The show also features complex, experimental works such as Ohanian's Hidden, where a frame shot of a oil field in Texas incorporates in its numeric coding another image that is invisible.

A computer provides the cryptographed partition of the numeric reality of the invisible image. Based on a cryptography process used by Al Qaida to communicate over the internet, this projection only shows viewers the visible part of the film, while the invisible part is simultaneously shown in another place.

And Orozco's Samurai Tree Animation, a 3-D animation on a hard disc that is ruled by a system of invisible processes, plays on geometric abstraction and challenges conventional notions of reality.

"Their themes and techniques may be different, but what is common to all these artists is that their work is not about technology or presenting something beautiful or glamorous — it is about exploring the essence of a human being," Crousel says. "Video art offers experiences and moments of emotion that make you think about reality in a different way. Just as you need to be in a certain mood to enjoy poetry, you need to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate and enjoy video art. I hope art lovers in the UAE will take the time to enjoy these artworks," she adds.

Living With Video will run at The Pavilion Downtown Dubai until June 30.