Le temps spectaculaire

This body of research focuses on the legacy of Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle (1967) in contemporary art and investigates the way in which one might approach today's world through the prism of Debord's theoretical work. The research aims at 'translating' and 'updating' the references made by Debord, by using new media and in particular the World Wide Web, as well as other images drawn from contemporary visual culture. I produced new works in various media which were exhibited for the first time at the Institut Français de Thessalonique, in Thessaloniki, Greece, in the context of my solo exhibition Le Temps Spectaculaire (curated by Angeliki Grammatikopoulou). The exhibition formed part of the guest events of the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art and was funded by the French Consulate. It aimed to shed new light on the notion of spectacle by making references to major historical events of the last 25 years, including the growth of globalisation. Since their exhibition in November 2011, most of the featured works have been widely exhibited internationally, including presentations at the World Event Young Artists of the Cultural Olympiad, London 2012 and at the European Capital of Culture 2012, Maribor. On the basis of Le Temps Spectaculaire, in April 2012 the Global Board of Contemporary Art pronounced me (at the ALICE awards) one of the four most important emerging artists around the world. I have given various public talks about Le Temps Spectaculaire, including presentations at the Institut Français de Thessalonique during the time of the exhibition (2011) and at Tate Liverpool in the context of the 7th Liverpool Biennial (2012). Finally, I have extended my inquiry and further developed the themes of this research in a major article for Third Text, published online (2013)