Oh boy, did they make us laugh, the promoters of those squares bearing cryptic geometric patterns. The revolution they promised seemed so futile, and its advent so unlikely. Come on: sticking these little codes everywhere, from products packaging to walls […]

Montpellier, February 2019. The geriatrician spends several hours a day alone, sitting in front of the screens located in this strange pratice at the very end of the corridor. Using video equipment, she teleports into the nurses’ trolley of dozens […]

Marseille, February 2019 There was a time when the purchase of furniture was made through visits to specialized stores, exchanges with salespeople and a delivery of the chosen table and chairs some time later. Now, the delegation to consumers is […]

Marseilles, January 2019 In cities, it is often forbidden to write on walls, surfaces so welcoming for chalk, bombs, felts or brushes, but regulationally or functionally intended for other uses. And when some violate the rules, it is then necessary […]



 Lille, October 2018 Because it affects citizen identity, requires a lot of organization and traditions are numerous, marriage is a highly scriptural act. There is pell-mell the deposit of a file in town hall, announcements, a wedding gift list, […]

Marseilles, Septembre 2018 The curve kept reappearing on the screen, looking as variable as the numbers accompanying it. Only the timeframe elapsing second after second brought its share of regularity. As soon as they were born, the little humans were […]

In the train between Italy and France, November 2018. The train stopped just before the border to let Police and Customs agents get on. They were squeezed into thick black uniforms. When the train restarted, they passed in the carriages, […]

La Rochelle, december 2017. A pencil, a sheet of paper, and everything is possible. Intuitions can be quickly thrown out, in black and white, during a conversation. Mundane activities acquire a slightly different consistency. Transcribed into lists, the things to […]

Marseilles, November 2018. In debates between video protection advocates and video surveillance critics, it is the argument of (in)effectiveness that seems to be the most decisive. It would prevent crimes, find perpetrators, identify victims… or not. While we know that […]

Paris, April 2018. It is in the first pages of The Second Sex, “Childhood”: one of the founding events that make little girls aware of their difference (the so-called castration anxiety) is the inability to urinate standing. In 2018, there […]

They were fifteen – perhaps twenty – on the platform that day, with their blue vests, paper bundles and pencils. I saw a few of them when I arrived, sitting out of the wind, leaning over what seemed to be […]

Paris, November 2017. Going out of the studio gives an occasion to acknowledge the difference of both temperature and hygrometry between in and out. While commenting on difficulties and sensations of the day, skins are drying and wrapping up inch […]

As soon as we are born, we are saturated with inscriptions: first names and surnames given to us, sanctuarized in civil status documents, our height and weight measured while we barely breathe, the various samples and tests to which others […]

Paris, July 2018. Have you noticed the number of events on backstage? Exhibitions on the restoration of the collections here, the maintenance of contemporary works there, technicians and decorative materials visible on stage, transparent walls showing the offices of the […]

Rotterdam, August 2018. The exhibitions in the contemporary museum were disappointing, but an unexpected installation awaited as they walked into the bathroom. On each of the doors, these slogans written in English, lingua franca by excellence, almost completely obscuring the […]

Our guest : Florence Paterson Rome, november 2017. Cimitero Acattolico. No doubt the serenity of the place and the beautiful sunlight filtering through the vegetation make it a desirable last home. This “non-Catholic” cemetery near Porta San Paolo, mentioned in […]

Paris, february 2014. There is a tendency to believe that some things resist the writing powers. Irony, for example, or innuendo. Stripped of gestures and intonation, sentences would not fully bring out in their readers this fine form of understanding […]

La Rochelle, august 2011. Audit practices are now commonplace in business corporations, public institutions and administrations. Since the 1980s, the diversity of accounting devices, metrics and quality indexes, deployed in the name of the good governance of organizations, their financial […]

Paris, December 2017. The highway code states a general rule on the distribution of public space: the road is made for vehicles whereas the pavement is made for pedestrians. And parking enforcement officers take disciplinary action when somebody breaches of […]

Palma, May 2018 The order seemed simple: a cappuccino and a hot chocolate. But this apparently ordinary Majorcan bar was home to one of these new latte artists, obsessed with the surface of our favourite beverages. Also, instead of a […]

One can easily forget the immense range of games that are practiced in playgrounds. Football, marbles, tag are just the tip of the iceberg. Of all the things invented during these precious minutes of endless possibilities, the ephemeral reigns. The […]

Paris, May 2018. For most of them, it is the last trace, the one that remains as long as the ink, the pigment or the gold resist to the attacks of rain, ultra-violet and pollution. And in this cemetery, not […]

Paris, May 2018. There are erudite notation systems to record human movement, like Meunier’s steno-choreography for classical ballet, and above all labanotation for modern dance and Benesh notation. The purpose of these so-called universal descriptions is, on the one hand, […]

Paris, January 2018. Managing the multiplication of vehicle units that criss-cross cities is not an easy task. From the point of view of physical infrastructure, as well as that of the law and the signs that make it exist on […]

Issy-Les-Moulineaux, march 2018. A metal plate framed and supported by feet riveted to the ground, the whole overhung by an inscription. That’s it. The smooth, vertical surface is offered for sight. An urban furniture being part of the environment, it […]

Paris & Twitter, March 2018. In French Law, the criminal trial is one of the places where orality is sacred. You don’t skip through files in all directions, you do not spread the thousands of pages of the instruction, only […]

Paris, December 2017. You’ve been walking past this glass door every day for years. The gilded brass plate shows a Japanese name, which you have already copied on your mobile phone to make a request. Then, you were looking for […]

Second-hand records that you’re willing to buy generally share at least three criteria: they are records that you don’t already own (at a certain point, you’ll need a database you can browse on your phone to be sure), records that […]

Marseilles, June 2017. Sociologists have taught us that clothes are signs: they indicate, because of their choices, a professional role, groups of belongings or social positioning. But others have to interpret these signs, they must know what the gray suit […]

Paris, January 2018. We are used to say that the Anthropocene, Capitalocene, or Plantalocene, can be seen in severe discontinuities. When going across the town, the attentive passer-by may have some first indications. Paris is marbled by flood marks and, […]

During the nineteen sixties and seventies, Malick Sidibé was a busy man. During the day, he spent his time in his studio portraying the people of Bamako. Some evenings, the younger ones, who were discovering the joys of rock and […]

Singapore, february 2017. On your daily journeys, you regularly encounter stairs. In a building, a shopping mall, the subway corridors, a historic building, or even an university campus… Sometimes abrupt and high, sometimes wide and spacious, the steps naturally follow […]

Ferrare, October 2017 Some ceilings of the municipal library were magnificent, remains of a medieval and post-medieval splendor. But the interior of the Palazzo Paradiso attracted less curious tourists than academics, with its collections of rare manuscripts, still accessible on […]