Snaking is a video work in black and white, made by Philippe Parreno and Pierre Joseph based on the advertising model of the video clip. Snaking represents a relationship to society through the opposition gliding/snaking. Metaphorical images unfold with in-camera editing set to rhythmic music of a very short duration.
Snaking starts with a suggestion written on the screen: “You're tired of blading, trekking, jogging, rafting... Try snaking.” Contemporary and conformist practices of personal stereos, rollerblading and other forms of gliding involve a dynamic without obstacles, that the music prolongs, whereas the image alternately presents an actor pronouncing this phrase with a stutter and characters who are snaking: children on the pavement, a man in the street, then in a forest. Later, wearing an item of clothing that draws his legs together, the man moves along a wharf, dives into a pool and finally reappears in a narrow space through which he gains access to strong light.
The work makes reference to the notion of overstretching one's limits and to the film The Big Blue through a psychologising and grotesque world, in which different worlds are shown in succession: the street, the underground and the aquatic world. This playful approach to an existential question results in a return of human hybridity to private space, which a commentary on the work expresses as: “So let's get out of the water and get back on land… and try snaking! Why not? Again, why not?”
Wide shots and close-ups, hand-held images and solarisation discretely animate the sequences as they unfold, supported by the music broadcast in surround sound.
The fluidity of the social approach through “fun”, which has marked the last two decades, breaks away from the representations of the 1960s and 1970s, which Chris Burden's Through the night softy (1971-1974) testifies to, in which a bare-chested man with his arms tied behind his back crawls across a layer of broken glass.
In Philippe Parreno's work, the snake and the action of snaking are themes that are presented in various forms and refer to distinct realities. The exhibition Try Snaking at the Air de Paris gallery in 1991 presented an item of clothing recalling that of the videotape, as well as an installation consisting of a path of stones and a container bearing the inscription “snaking”.
In the installation AC/DC Snakes numéro 1 (1995-1998), an assemblage of electrical plugs, diodes and cables indicate the notion of a network, its mode of supply and, in Parreno's work, more broadly refer to contemporary communication systems and social relations. In Surface de réparation 2, l'homme public (1995), the speakers and microphone are unplugged, in the mise-en-scène of a television show, in order to create an interaction between the audience and the presenter.

Thérèse Beyler