Kortrijk-born Claerbout, who was trained as a painter, is a singular voice in the world of video art and installations. His work seems to be freezing time, or stretching it, a 21st-century counterpart of 19th-century photographer and cinema pioneer Edward Muybridge, famous for his high-speed photographs of movement.

The Time That Remains documents how Claerbout has slowly shifted focus the past 15 years, and how he keeps reinventing himself. In his oldest works, a fixed camera registers the action. In "Cat and Bird in Peace" (1996), a cat on the extreme left and a canary on the right border of the screen are just sitting, almost neglecting each other. On the first screen of "American Car" (2004), the camera is focussed on the back of two people in a car, rain pouring outside. On a second screen (at first hidden by the first one), we see the car as a dot in vast landscape after the rain.

Or take "Kindergarten Antonio Sant'Elia 1932" (1998), for which Claerbout blew life into an old photo from the 1930s: the children are still frozen in time, but the wind quietly moves the two trees.

In a second group of works, Claerbout captures slow movements. In the amazing, almost hypnotising "Long Goodbye" (2007), a woman exits a mansion, then pours a drink and, upon "discovering" the camera, waves to it. It's shot in one extremely sluggish backward camera movement, slowly revealing the mansion. What makes it really unsettling is the very quick movement of the shadow over the house, as if this one shot covers a whole day.

Almost as amazing is "The American Room" (2009- 2010): A small group of people are attending a Lieder concert. The camera moves through the room, but the characters are frozen, as if lifelike mannequins. Or as if a 3D photo has been made of the action, and the camera now moves through that photo. Where in "Long Goodbye", Claerbout squeezes time, in "The American Room", he stretches one moment to its extreme - something he also does in "Dancing Couples (after: Couples at square dance, McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940)".

Since "Bordeaux Piece" (2004) Claerbout, 41, is also more and more influenced by narrative cinema. The piece, featuring Flemish actor Josse De Pauw, is an ingenious combination of 70 shots that have, with mathematical precision, been filmed over and over again over the course of a month.

But the narrative side is really fully explored in two of the exhibition's best pieces. "Riverside" (2009) is a two-screen installation in which a woman, on the left screen, and a man, on the right, wander through the same valley, although not at the same moment.

And in the flat-out brilliant "Sunrise" (2009) we see, while the day is slowly dawning, a maid arriving at a modern house and preparing it for the day that will follow. Biking from the house, her face is caught in the celestial first rays of sunlight. She smiles for the first time while classical music underlines this glorious moment, even more stressed by the transition of gray tones to colours.

There's mystery in all of Claerbout's work - from the cat not eating the canary to the possibly intertwined lives in "Riverside" - but mostly they are intriguingly filmed constructions that, while difficult not to admire, don't evoke big emotions. With "Sunrise", he has made his first video with a strong, emotional impact. It's not a coincidence that he never has come closer to cinema, including, unusual for him, non-diegetic sound. I mean, project "Sunrise" in a cinema, and everyone will say it's an amazing short film.

I'm wondering if his next step shouldn't be making a feature film, like another internationally praised Flemish video artist, Nicolas Provost, has just done. Or will Claerbout settle for the safety of the art world, in which he has secured a steady position as, and rightfully so, one of the most innovative video artists of his time. Your guess is as good as mine, but don't forget: only if you've seen The Time That Remains are you allowed to guess.

Pictured: David Claerbout's "The Algiers' Sections of a Happy Moment", 2008

The Time That Remains
Until 15 May
Wiels, Van Volxemlaan 354
Brussels
www.wiels.org