That Place, 2007, Video, 8min
The Best & The Brightest, 2004, Video, 4 min
DCM, c-prints
Raymond Taudin Chabot analyses in his works physical and psychological dependence-structures of power systems. He is interested in the definition and representation of the male gender, specifically throughout the aestheticism of the businessman’s stereotypical masculinity. He looks at the male representatives of these power systems, at stereotype masculine images of business man.
In his videos Chabot uses time, linearity and redundancy as a stilistic device, objectifying the spatial perception in such a way that the linear and cyclical do not only become a narrative but also a physical perceivable element.
Through repetition of individual singular work movements or scenes, representative patterns from this business man are deconstructed.Anonymous white men in suits are caricatured within their self-staging as economic or social elite, visualizing their malfunctioning reference system to reality. Reality rushes past them as in the video “That Place”, in which a business man is chauffeured right past reality.
Raymond Taudin Chabot studies sociological patterns of behaviour, stages bussinessman-habitus and unmasks bussinessman conditioning-systems in a subtile way, focussing on their activities, isolating them in one situation, without allowing further scopes. The “modern” image of hegemonic forms of rule is represented by managerial aesthetics corresponding to patriachally-structured power systems, which they reproduce. Reality, beyond any areas of financial or power politics, is also perceived merely as a field of economic interests. The obsessive desire for ultimate gain puts of thousands of jobs at risk.