Brief video encounters

There persists a school of thought among today's young video artists that to merely point a camera at a subject, for several minutes or even hours at a time, is enough to constitute a worthwhile artwork.

One might think of the earlier work of Turkish artist and Turner Prize nominee Kutlug Ataman, who lets his subjects roll on at their own pace with absolutely no editorial intervention.

Ataman's approach has been quite hit-and-miss, although one can't deny that he possesses the knack of drawing out interesting stories from people who have something to say and who thoroughly relish saying it. Unfortunately, whether or not a subject is interesting is considered an unnecessary worry by far too many video artists.

This comes to mind when viewing the work of French Algerian artist Kader Attia, who offers a series of rambling, structureless video vignettes, occasionally interspersed with black-and-white stills of various friends and acquaintances.

These people talk inconsequentially, interact a little with the artist behind camera, look indifferent and maybe show off. The artist occasionally mumbles a banal question and some polite small talk proceeds but rarely does one feel engaged with the subject.

Maybe it's the obvious discomfort of the people in Attia's videos which we're invited to find interesting. After all, they have probably never been in front of a rolling camera before. But there is such a casual sense of detachment in Attia's approach to his subject, that this of itself provides no insight into their lives.

The films are too short to allow you to engage with anything. But, then again, perhaps this brevity is the only thing working to their advantage.

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