Saynètes is a video projected on a white wall. It shows a succession of
sequences presenting people in their cars stopped at a red light, waiting to move off as soon as the light turns green. The video is an uninterrupted flow of cars framed above the passenger cell, so we can observe the driver’s gestures. The shot is focused on the moment when the driver changes gear, which is the climax of each sequence. The « actors » in this video have been filmed without them knowing it from an apartment, each car being framed differently depending on the zoom chosen with the camera. The scenario is the same for each scene: the arrival of the car, the time waiting and the moving off when the light turns green. The video illustrates a micro sociology of the driver’s attitudes, which are both very banal and varied. Each person has her own way to spend her waiting time, whether she is patient, nervous, very active, smoking, looking for something in her pockets, on the phone, etc. The moment when the driver ceases the gear lever marks the return to the real social life in
a public space; a gesture which is sometimes sensual, sometimes rough or even a symbol of power and authority in a couple… The viewer could find a critical vision of the rhythms of contemporary life, some humor, or even eroticism, but the work remains opened to several interpretations.