If the worst artistic event in Cambridge this academic year was Max Barton’s pathetic ‘No Magic’, then Kettle’s Yard’s current exhibition comes a close second. Like Barton’s play, it appears angsty, frustrated and defensive about its own weaknesses, determined to ram those flaws down the viewer’s throat. These artworks, particularly when displayed in this setting, fail so strangely that it becomes hard to guess what they even wanted to communicate in the first place.

To be candid, it’s been too long since Kettle’s Yard put anything special before us. "Inside Me", their Michaelmas exhibition of Helen Almeida’s hyperactive photography, was a bravura performance perfectly suited to the minimalist and open-plan setting. Now, however, the gallery has hit rock-bottom with a resounding whimper. The decision to display Tim Head’s cold, esoteric and abstract art is, to put it lovingly, grossly misguided. Afterall his last commission came from the Biochemistry department at Oxford.Working primarily with computer monitors and projector screens, Head literally crashes computers and passes them off as art. Whatever this might signify (postmodern alienation anybody?) it never manages to take boredom as a stylistic principle or lead out of it towards larger artistic concerns. Instead, many of the pieces are simply glorified screen-savers, moments of pixelated stasis occurring in the gaps between real ideas. Their images have all the clarity, precision and authenticity of a Crimewatch reconstruction video. They are so lacking in intensity and memorability that one begins to wonder whether Head might not actually be a pseudonym for Henman. Generally, they work in a similar way to The Tab: an electronic exercise in having nothing to say. Ultimately, there’s a lot of raw material in this exhibition; but there’s definitely not a lot that matters.

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