C108 Review

Edinburgh: Incommunicado at City Arts Centre

E. M. Forster wrote, "Only connect." But communicating is hard. Words flounder impotently in an attempt to express the thoughts in one's head. Or if they do forge together, no-one's listening. What happens then? Violence? A scream or a silence? Bruce Nauman, whose work features in this exhibition on the problems of connecting with others and the difficulties artists face in addressing this, has said, "I think the point where language starts to break down as a useful tool for communication is the same edge where poetry or art occurs." And it's a good premise from which to start thinking about the show.

Many of the pieces here explore the struggle for congruence between inner and outer expression, most intensely within the breakdown of a relationship. Video works by Nauman, Samuel Beckett, Smith / Stewart depict conflict between men and women and in all scenarios language is clearly useless. Beckett's piece, Comédie, has three talking heads, gabbling away sternly in French - a man floats, decapitated, in the middle and is the linking person in a dynamic of betrayal. No one is listening to the other and the isolation is oppressive.

Beckett's influence on video artists in the latter half of the last century is highlighted in carefully selected works such as Nauman's Gauze and Lip synch, while Smith/Stewart's Autograph depicts two hands scratching their signature on a scraper board, fighting bitterly for control of the implement.

Further on, popular culture and the media come under scrutiny. In Omer Fast's CNN concentrated hundreds of coiffured CNN presenters uttering just one word have been stuck together for a broadcast which begins, "I am American. You are American. We are American. Don't talk. Don't move. Don't even react. Don't do anything at all." CNN's subliminal message finally out.

What comes through in all of the works is a sense of the ridiculous along with the profound. Perhaps Beckett's title for his work is most apt. Comédie. It is faintly crazy that we keep on and on trying to be heard and understood, but this basic human need, its successes and failures will perplex and confound us for as long as we're around. And if the artist's role is to take off where we break down, many of their works on show here are doing a very fine job.

Ruth Hedges is an arts journalist based in Edinburgh.

Incommunicado, City Arts Centre, Edinburgh, March - May, 2004