I have seldom dealt with video art here (my explorations of the works of Jeremy Blake would qualify) but this video is important to look at both ways because of an interesting twist it undertakes.
In a way, it is an instructional video. Callot looks at the three main feeds for Video Art (Performance, Abstraction, Appropriation) and then creates an example of each. This is where Callot is something of a genius, and hits the points so damned well. The fact is, in many pieces of video art, the idea is to make the audience uncomfortable, not only through subject matter, but through the lengthening of the presentation of the piece. The first segment, where he creates a performance where he pours powder on himself and then activates it with what I believe is hot water, is brief, and intense, but most importantly, the length that is given to us feels just a slight bit longer than we would desire to view. Had it merely been a momentary glimpse, the truth of what much performance-based video art attempts to accomplish would have been lost. On the other, it was not so long that the flow of the piece was interrupted.
The other two segments accomplish their intentions well, without doing the obvious and treating the subject as a comedic piece. Callot presents two scenarios that are serious and illustrative, and neither go further than required to give us the feeling for the topic. That is the sign of an exceptional documentary, and on the basis of that, it is a remarkable short doc.