HEURE EXQUISE !

Presentation by Sandra Lischi


Archaeology and neology of the video

The cameras which are increasingly lighter and easier to handle allow an intimate, daily and immediate use of the video, (not mediate, i.e. : not even a reflexion on the language). Personal diaries, improvised interviews, recordings of humourous life snippets, everyday life and confessions, all nowadays fill many video festivals, bringing in a tendency which sometimes at least has the merit of a certain freshness or intuition concerning themes and interesting views, but which more often than not takes on an anthropological, sociological or chronicle interest. This is quite different from the production of works which last. Sometimes it seems to to me that excessive place is given to this tendency, and that these videos benefit from an exaggerated indulgency in criticism. I also wonder about the massive return of performance (very well represented in the catalogue, historically too), but emptied of its potential for anti-institutional provocation of the style of the sixties and seventies. The surreal has been transformed into grotesque when it is not outright madness, and rare are the examples when intelligent humour, finesse or a pertinant reflexion on the medium replace simplistic or effect orientated jokes.

When during festivals, I am submerged by this wave of video happenings, by this facility of use, this minimalism in language and in thought, my hour is no longer exquisite, and it becomes a dreadful hour... Dear friends of "Heure Exquise !", perhaps we should reflect together on this new tendency ? We should try to understand its success, its reasons for existence ? I can see, on my table, your folders from the meetings and the discussions we had on the various current video tendencies. I know that you are untiring and thoughtful travellers, I would like us to get together and develop some thought on the importance and the space provided today for video-gags.

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Biography

Do not forget the exclamation mark ! A few words on Catalogue 2000

Think video

Surrealism, garden, work, madness...

Archaeology and neology of the video

A Work of art and the network