In the middle of the night, a young woman crosses the city of Hong Kong – vast, noisy and mysterious. A scene from her childhood resurfaces in her mind, the same each time, reddened as thought it were a photo from the past, but as simple as life itself.

Robert Cahen is a seminal figure in the European art realm and is firmly positioned and widely regarded as one of the most important personalities in the field of experimental video. In Cahen’s uniquely nuanced world, fiction and document alike are presented as metaphoric voyages of the imaginary, exquisite reveries that describe passages of time, place, memory and perception.

His research has been haunted by the notion of passing: passing from fixed image to moving image, passing from a place – and a time – to another, transformation of filmed reality and eye, exploration of sound related to the image. His approach is part of an always-renewed dialogue between visible and invisible, narration and poetry, distance and presence, confronting another world, a world made different – beautiful, disturbing by metamorphoses of time and space.

The Sight of Time exhibits major works of the artist, integrating these images to an installation device and introducing the visitor in the heart of imaginary landscapes. After earning a degree from the National Higher Conservatory of Music of Paris in 1971, Cahen trained as a composer and studied with Pierre Shaeffer. He became a member of the Musical research Group of ORTF (National French Radio and Television organization) and then took charge of experimental video research at INA (the National Audiovisual Institute) until 1976.

Since 1997, his works (video and video installations) have been shown all over the world in Contemporary Art Exhibitions such as Shanghai Art Museum (Biennial), MAMC of Strasbourg, Contemporary Art Museum of Santiago (Chile), The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Video View Point) or the Documenta 8, Kassel.