ARTISTS TALKING

London's east end: an area one hardly needs to introduce. A magnet within the magnet, it attracts thousands of artists and art lovers. Its outbursts of creative energy made a success of the 'Whitechapel Open'. After six years of silence, it's back again but under a different name: the 'East End Academy'. A new name, a new formula; this year's exhibition was tightly selected by Chris Ofili, Chantal Crousel and Niru Ratnam. In charge of skimming through the 800 applications, they finally chose to present twenty-two artists.

With no particular theme in mind, the selectors opted for a subtle curatorial approach by suggesting two "levels of reading". So whilst on the ground floor the audience is confronted with works allegedly grounded in the reality of an "urban context", the first floor ascends to the intellectual spheres of a "mental space". An easy analogy for a discourse that is not entirely convincing, since artworks by their very nature conjure up a mental space. Most artworks play with the notions of the real and the imaginary or the fake; In the Naughty Puppies (2003) series, Louise Brierley paints anthropomorphic characters in suburbia whose lives seem devoted to the pleasures of the flesh. The realism of the environment contrasts with the fantastical characters. Skilfully executed in oil, their varnished finish bequeaths them a timeless quality. Her paintings emanate a deadpan atmosphere that suggests something quite threatening.

In the footsteps of Brierley, this year's younger artists take elements of their environment and mix them with the imaginary. From a distance, Caroline McCarthy's installation Promise (2003) looks like dozens of plants being grown in pots. Three spotlights that hang above the table contribute to this illusion. A closer inspection reveals that in fact the pots contain fine herbs cut out from ready-to-eat meal boxes; a witty allusion to the fact that everyday signs maintain us in a constructed reality. Even if the buyers of such products know processed food doesn't contain fresh herbs, in the haste of modern life, they are fooled into associating the image of the herb with freshness. As Jacques Lacan claimed, in the contemporary mind, the signifier has become the bearer of identity instead of the signified.

In his video, Array, Manuel Saiz portrays modifications of council dwellings. At first sight, it appears that the images have been digitally manipulated in the manner of architect's proposals presenting alternative possibilities for future buildings. The house numbers soon give the pivotal clue: Saiz's images are pictures of existing façades taken on the same street where inhabitants have broken the uniformity of the original design. Sarah Carne's creative process exploits the same ambiguity in the video You in Love? You Gonna Be (2002). Passers-by smile randomly at someone or something behind the camera. Are they seeing themselves being filmed? Is the artist acting up? The spectator in the gallery is frustrated by not being able to see what triggers the smiles. Carne denies the spectator an omniscient viewpoint; as the smiling people leave the frame, they are taking away something that the viewers will never see. The viewers are trapped in a catch-22.

Like Carne, Dan Griffiths plays with conventions. With Rebel Learning (2004), Griffiths hijacks the local authorities' publishing style to create a billboard that advertises training in hacking skills or in graffiti making. Parodying the sometimes crude and simplistic fashion of governmental initiatives, it reflects the way institutions endeavour to integrate activities that were first subversive, in order to control and disempower them. Meanwhile artists such as Levin Haegele carry out their dissident interventions. In Multicoloured Gum Piece, 2002, armed with cans of bright red, yellow and blue paints, he colours chewed gums stuck onto public footpaths. Watch your doorstep!