Aernout Mik's 'Shifting Shifting' at Camden Arts Centre

Aernout Mik's exhibition 'Shifting Shifting' (2006-07) at Camden Arts Centre featured video installations including 'Training Ground' (2006), 'Scapegoats' (2006), 'Vacuum Room' (2005), and 'Raw Footage' (2006). The videos depict groups engaged in ambiguous, repetitive activities, often involving opposition between two collectives—police and immigrants in 'Training Ground', activists and officials in 'Vacuum Room', soldiers and civilians in 'Scapegoats'. Mik's installations are designed in response to gallery spaces, with screens placed flush to the floor to create continuity with the viewer's space. The video technology is exposed, with visible projectors, cables, and mirrors. Mik's work elicits a dual response: viewers are both engrossed and distracted, implicated and distanced. This effect is linked to narrative ambiguity and the fluidity of roles, where individuals shift allegiance. The review by Steve Adam Chodzko compares Mik's strategies to Structural film of the 1960s-70s, noting similarities in foregrounding the projection event and avoiding dramatic incident, but argues Mik's work does not aim for alienation or functional boredom. Instead, Mik's images attract viewers into a fictional world, creating a trompe-l'oeil effect. The political potential of Mik's work is discussed via Jacques Rancière's concept of dissensus, where viewers occupy a liminal position between alienation and immersion, offering opportunity for political activity.