Anarchic challenges in Warwick Arts Centre installation

THE all too familiar world of the office would seem to be an unlikely hunting ground for artists in search of unexplored material.

But when the mutually opposed worlds of art and commerce are brought together in Pilvi Takala’s film, The Trainee, there is universal bafflement at the trainee’s deliberately strange behaviour as she sits at her desk ‘thinking’ as opposed to sorting files, or spends a day in the lift instead of on the office floor.

It’s an example of an anarchic way of challenging the validity of accepted norms of behaviour which first appeared as an ingredient of art practice in the Dada era of the early 20th century. But it’s given a 21st century twist here through the artist’s subversive intrusion into a real situation.

Wood and Harrison also intrude in equally absurd ways in their film, 10x10, but with a slick efficiency that makes the crazy tasks they set themselves in their supposedly ten-storey office block seem all the more startling. It’s far and away the best thing here, with cleverly choreographed action and startlingly original filming that turns their upending of the office routine into an irresistibly bizarre drama.

The artist’s studio is of course also a workplace, so this gets an airing too in Joao Onfre’s film, Vulture in the studio. The bird of the title is shown as a disorientated intruder as it clumsily negotiates the awkward obstacle course of the artist’s crowded bookshelf. It can be safely assumed that ‘no animals were harmed during the making of this film’ but this poor bird would certainly have been left metaphorically scratching its head.

Peter McCarthy