Marseille, June 2020 The Covid-19 epidemic has produced mourning and suffering, and deep traces in our public spaces: health slogans, practical instructions, gel dispensers, masks of all kinds on faces and necks, terraces invading sidewalks and even streets. It also […]
Maguelone, June 2020. It was no longer a question of gathering under sunshades, as the Mayor had announced. The new world required the beach to be “active and sporty”. The slogan of the liberation of lockdown, including the famous “social […]
The QR code had many lives, already. First a bubble of an Internet that could not hang on to our walls or our cereal packages, it fell into disuse, then resurfaced as a crucial link in a decentralized mobility infrastructure. […]
Marseille, June 2020. At the base of the building, under a series of balconies, is a higher space covered with stones set in cement. It is unclear whether its vocation was aesthetic, undoubtedly missed, or security, as much as it […]
Marseille, june 2019. The station is punctuated by the dance of the metal monsters arriving and leaving the platforms. Regional, high-speed, freight-transporting trains, all have a special profile, move with their characteristic noise, and display distinctive colors and markings. The […]
Our guests: Morten Nissen et Kristian H. Kofod Copenhagen, march 2020. Toilet writing is not what is used to be: anonymous messages to the world – political, humorous, sexual, philosophical food for thought. Now, tags carry only names as their […]
Paris, October 2017. It begins like in a fairy tale: knock, knock, knock, “- Who’ s there?”. But, in front of this wooden door, which could be the grandmother’s in the Tales of Mother Goose, there is no need to […]
Our guest: Tomás S. Criado Munich, May 2020. Only seldom do constitutional debates take the streets. However, this bureaucratically heated disputes–regularly discussed in the secluded spaces of courts–sometimes catch media attention and stir political debate. After the implementation of stark […]
Our Guest : Émeline Brulé April 2020 in San Francisco, waiting in line to enter Rainbow Grocery, a worker-owned cooperative focusing on local, vegetarian organic food. Every journey is an opportunity to discover the new signs accompanying the pandemic. On […]
Marseille, April 2020. The street was, of course, empty, confinement required. With the sun hitting it directly, the sign built on an railway company right-of-way was all the more visible with its white background. The huge letters and the two-colour […]
Paris, April 2020. We now talk behind masks and write behind glass. To justify being closed, to give the address of the website where to place an order or to inform about adjusted schedules. There are also all those little […]
Paris, April 2020. It’s the poster superimposition that strikes me first, telling me a story in two parts. The first series, slipped into plastic sleeves, is taped inside the tobacco bar window. Well protected, was the poster supposed to last, […]
Marseille, March 2020. The avenue was almost deserted, confinement obliges. The shops on the ground floor were closed, with iron curtains on which small posters recalling the government’s decision were hung. But higher up, on the upper floors, one could […]
Paris, September 2019. It is not only in the sciences that interdisciplinarity has become a watchword in the strictest sense. I do not mean a commandment, but a set of actions linked to statements by a “social obligation” – in […]
Toulouse, november 2019. A kilometre marker, I am placed in the traffic lane so that passersby can see me clearly. As a signage component, I play a dual role: I identify the road on which I am placed as a […]
It’s an old story. Morality is about more than the separation of right and wrong, fair and unfair. It also involves the distribution of tasks and responsibilities. It’s not so much a matter of pointing out the guilty who have […]
Marseille, janvier 2020 The cheque, so useful to bring the bank account into the heart of the French population, is now abhorred by banks. Too much complex materiality, manual operations and processing for this medium compared to the seemingly immediate […]
Aix-en-Provence, January 2020 Some writings are not meant to be read, or rather they are written so that they cannot be read. The Ministry of Colonies in Paris wanted to communicate secretly with the Governor of Pondicherry, who was geographically […]
Paris, January 2020. It was very cold that morning when I decidedly crossed this small flea market in the neighborhood. My eyes were drawn to the cover of a book I had just finished a few days earlier. It was […]
Paris, december 2019. If many writings circulate from one place to another, they are also displayed to be seen or read in situations. This is all the more obvious for shop signs, labels, and signboards, which much of their action […]
Prohibition signs are more than mere conveyors of law or regulation. They give the world an extra layer of reality by giving sometimes very virtual actions an extra level of existence. You never thought of throwing stones in the pond? […]
Montpellier, December 2019. In this congested storeroom in the operating room, the surgeons are practising their new robot adorned with a thousand virtues. Around this surprising man-machine arrangement, they piled up medical equipment that they no longer knew where to […]
Sesquières, august 2019. Lead sunshine and excessive temperature, the heat wave is well settled. When I get to the waterhole, I only want one thing: to take a swim! Although stunned by the heat and the blurring of vision, I […]
Huge fans of soccer and beer, the couple had come from the United States as if on a pilgrimage. Three weeks, a time-tracked tour. Barely one or two days per city. Except for the most important ones: London of course, […]
Paris, May 2019. To write one’s first name is to learn how to discipline one’s gesture to mark individuality: AGATHE, ALEX, ANIA, ARYEM, EDEN. To be born in writing in a variety of downstrokes, upstrokes and space between letters, under […]
Marseille, October 2019 The grey grids are familiar, everywhere they are present with their “danger of death” warnings, intended to avoid any intrusion. The power distribution is extremely standardized, not only in terms of frequency and voltage, but also in […]
Paris, October 2016. The Palais de Chaillot is definitely an odd place. This “neoclassical monumentalist” architectural legacy of the interwar period contains number of Nabis and Art Deco works. Most of them have been forgotten and return to their former […]
Marseille, octobre 2019 Day after day, on the way to school, the message is less and less readable. The sheets that were glued yesterday are now flying and soon the last ones will leave, leaving behind the grey and empty […]
Arles, July 2019. To obtain a photo is to compose a frame, an exposure, to modify the image whether in silver or digital form, to make a print on a specific paper, in a suitable format, with a frame. To […]
= Kutaisi, September 2019. At first, we did not pay so much attention to the discoloured coin operated amusement machines everywhere in downtown sidewalks. We thought it had been a long time since Space Invaders had escaped from arcade and […]
Paris, May 2019. The thin vehicle quickly became commonplace in our streets: the urban electric scooter at your disposal is the purest liberated mobility. Starting from where you want, going where you wish, by the route of your choice, with […]
Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, May 2019. The invitation card is framed in the kitchen. Witness of a past glory, it has pride of place on the wall above the stove. She had been pacing up and down for years, alone, the roads of […]