The works of Moroccan-born, French-based artist Bouchra Khalili-particularly Vue Panoramique, presented in the 15th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival (2005)-reveal space in an intense fashion. Her visual constructions become true landscapes that depict, in a subtle and delicate way, the motions and uses characteristic of the places they portray. This can be clearly seen in Vue Panoramique, in the duration of the shots, the mismatch between text and image, and the distance from which scenes are captured, always from afar. The artist actually seems to create a gap between image and voiceover, leaving a space for viewers to fill up using their own senses, awakened by her work.
In works such as Napoli Centrale (2002) and Vue Aérienne (2006), the positioning of the camera, the relation between voiceover and image, and the strictness in the formal composition of frames also disclose landscapes that show the uses and functions of space-as is the case with the channel between Morocco and Spain in Vue Panoramique. Often dealing with public space, Khalili's videos highlight the motions of landscape, the coming and going of boats (or the “mobile architecture of the ports,” in the words of Baudelaire), the circulation of people, the landscapes, and the borders-spaces open to nomadism, which invite us to cast a contemplative gaze, one that travels along the image.
Art critic, theoretician, and writer, former European editor of the Parachute magazine, and currently a philosophy professor in Paris and Toulon, Stephen Wright wrote the essay on the work of Khalili for this FF>>Dossier, the last in a series of six installments dedicated to the relations between space and image. A reflexive tribute to Foucault's text of the same name, the Outros espaços [Other Spaces] curatorship was aimed at widening the debate about the aforementioned relations, based on works presented during the 15th Videobrasil-and also at expanding the actions promoted by Associação Cultural Videobrasil and giving artists and works a visibility that exceeds the realm of the Festival.
Further info on this artist available at the collection
