Strategies of Confidence, NICC, 10-01-2009 until 8-03-2009
The exhibition Strategies of Confidence is set up around the topic of credibility. This term comes out of the specific context of communication sciences and sociology.

Erving Goffmann was a sociologist who gave credibility a very significant meaning within the presentation of the self in everyday life, especially in the conservations between the individual and the other(s). In this communication the individual always tries to define the situation. He tries to control the reaction of the other(s) to whom he's talking. The individual always insinuated a promising character: it is continuously reflecting on things that are not there in the same time. This means the others are obliged to trust him and to consider these hings as being true. In this way they can react properly on what is said.

The communiation of the individual happens on two levels: the first is the verbal communication and the second is communication through the body which is not always controllable. Credibility grows when the individual is able to control as good as possible these two levels of communication. The other(s) tend to only consider something true when checked with the most uncontrollable for the individual: expression.

For this exhibition four video artists are invited. It's not a coincidence that they all work with video. This medium makes the presentation of reality possible in a very clear way. Bram Crevits is working with YouTubevideos. Ilke De Vries and Saskia Holmkvsit are working with the genre of documentary. Julika Rudelius approaches video as a way to show the uncontrollable and the unspeakable.

All these different ways of communication are fully represented in the exhibition. The artist is observing, documenting and making important visual decisions. The artist interferes and a new level of communication originates, next to the textual and the corporal. The protagonists tell a story that get a new meaning through the view of the artist.

The credibility of the protagonists is tested by the artists through the relation between the different layers of communication. This dialectic is inside all of us. That means the visitor will test the trustwordiness from the piece of art and its environment: in this case an exhibition about credibility.

Participating artists were: Bram Crevits, Ilke De Vries, Saskia Holmkvist, Julika Rudelius.

Curator: Alan Quireyns