Without context, when asked what decade video artist Sabrina Ratté’s work was produced in we would without hesitation say the 80s. But then of course, we’d be wrong. Ratté’s videos teem with such nostalgia for that bygone color saturated, neon-tinged era that they almost don’t feel contemporary anymore. Even the video quality looks as if it was copied off a VHS tape. They are chillwaved psychedelic video trips that turn light into a living organism. Using tools that are available to anyone, her work investigates different types of light and its applications through an array of video experiments and music videos.In Retour Des Etoiles (above), a throbbing neon pulse of color alights across a scorched pink void in a never ending journey towards a glowing ring of light. Traveling over a vast radiating desert of luminosity, a white hot sun draws the waves towards it as if they were alive and returning to their source.In a video for the track “TV Troubles” by Boxcutter, the visage of a woman multiplies and divides, dissolving into globs of color as if she was morphing and extending herself into bursts of living light. At one point she multiplies into the background abyss, slowly transforming into a fiery blue wing that then whips, snake-like, into the cool cacophony of color.Found Video #1 is an odd, randomly appropriated video interview probably selected for its chilling blue glow. The square sized video image bounces and abstracts itself across the screen, leaving a smeared artifact trail in its wake. The image is subsequently deconstructed into a fluid series of TRON-ified blue panels. The calm voices of the video’s subjects are lent a haunting quality by the somber piano accompaniment.Ratté also exhibits an ongoing video experiment, 52 Pick-Up, on her website, where she posts a video for every week of the year. Read some of her video recipes here.
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