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Curator's text Gabriel Soucheyre, 2001

The Retaking of the Word by the Individual

This selection of French video strives to reflect its richness. It presents an eclectic but necessarily narrow choice. In the films presented we easily recognise the "heirs" to artists such as Robert Cahen, Thierry Kuntzel, Dominique Belloir, Jean-Paul Fargier or Michel Jaffrenou, to mention just a few. In their choreographed fictions, Nicole and Norbert Corsino reach the peak of their art: that constant gaze, slippery but always alive and inquisitive about the body and space. Cairaschi, Cahen, Avenel e Giraudon, Mathieu or even Barrié participate in what effectively identifies video art: new formats, original rhythms, a different – experimental? – way of seeing, of describing the world or what inspires it, a kind of electronic poetry that develops its own language, always in movement. New tendencies emerge thanks to technologies that allow artists such as Blair or Vogel to quench their imaginative powers. One of the most remarkable facts in the last few years is the easy access to video technologies: the numerical camera and computer edition. Suddenly, the individual reclaims speech, a large number of individuals, completely mastering all aspects of production on a minimal budget, however still being denied accessibility of mass media broadcasting (except if the internet allows one day satisfactory conditions...). It is one’s own reclaiming of speech – Clouin, Drouhain – to reclaim speech long suffocated, that of minority cultures – Lagalla. But video artists are still to recognise the influence of the inheritance passed on to them: experimental cinema. Such is the case of Cairaschi (already mentioned) or of Cotentin.

ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL, "13º Festival Internacional de Arte Eletrônica Videobrasil": de 19 de setembro de 2001 a 23 de setembro de 2001, p. 158, São Paulo, SP, 2001.