Lost and Found @ Street Level Photoworks

Anyone who’s ever attempted to face GI’s opening weekend can attest to the number of shows which, when combined with the Saturday shoppers, can quickly become overwhelming. Thankfully, Lost and Found acts as a very welcome oasis of quietness by revisiting video installations from the 70s and 80s.

Featuring works by six artists (Kevin Atherton, Stephen Littman, Pictorial Heroes, Zoë Redman, Stephen Partridge and Tony Sinden), the exhibition forces the viewer to slow down their hurried GI pace and offers a quiet, still and almost meditative atmosphere.

In the first room, Atherton’s empty television set includes only one blank screen – placed at head level, it becomes the centre of the set, the celebrity the viewer-made-spectator is waiting for.

Redman’s pyramid of six monitors shows flowing images of a landscape and a child crying, all reflected in a pool of water. The combination of still water and heavy monitors, as well as the feminine elements and personal images make for a haunting contrast to Atherton’s clinically lit installation.

But the most striking work remains the videowall of sixteen monitors in the main room. Partridge’s Scottish landscape, Littman’s theme of data protection and surveillance and Pictorial Heroes’ depiction of the Thatcher years – the viewer is drawn closer and almost drowns in the flood of images and faces spread across the monitors. [Adeline Amar]