Description
My work "Urban Cuneiform Writing," a subrealist reinterpretation of Van Gogh's The Bat, embodies a bold synthesis between the post-impressionist legacy and contemporary philosophical-artistic issues. By hybridizing physical techniques (acrylic on cardboard, cut-out tracings) and digital techniques (stop-motion animation, digital painting), I construct a techno-material palimpsest where manual gestures interact with algorithmic abstraction. This stratification symbolizes the superposition of layers of collective and individual memory, evoking an urban archaeological language—a modern cuneiform writing engraved not in clay, but in the ephemeral nature of urban walls and digital flows. Subrealism and the Archaeology of the Urban Subconscious
My "subrealist" approach goes beyond traditional surrealism by anchoring dreamlike images in a social geology: abstract signs, inspired by tribal codes, become hieroglyphs of contemporary subculture. These reinvented cuneiform forms act as psychic vestiges of a repressed reality—traces of desire, exclusion, or the search for identity of metropolitan "tribes." The cardboard structure, both fragile and transformed by digital painting, materializes this tension between erosion and permanence, between ruin and regeneration, central to Van Gogh's dialectic in his interpretation of natural duality.
Xanthopsia: Chromatic Utopia and Dialectic of Perception :
By integrating the Xanthopsia (yellow vision) collection, I re-enact Van Gogh's fascination with yellow as a symbol of inner light in the face of existential darkness. Xanthopsia – becomes an allegory of perceptual resilience: an invitation to decode the positivity in urban fractures, similar to how Van Gogh transcended his crises through chromatic saturation. The superposition of manual and digital layers evokes an archaeology of vision, where each layer corresponds to a level of consciousness (visible/hidden, real/virtual).
Van Gogh Reanimated: Classicism as a Mutant Substrate :
By reusing the original work as a foundation, I question the status of "originality" in the digital age. My process – tearing, pasting, animating – recalls the “pentimento” (repentance “in Italian”, it is a part of the painting that has been covered by the painter to profoundly modify the canvas. This can involve masking or revealing characters, objects or organs, or changing their appearance and position) of ancient painting, but radicalizes them into a techno-chimerical deconstruction-reconstruction. The frame-by-frame animation injects a fractured temporality, echoing Van Gogh’s psychic torments, while updating his vibratory gesture (his swirling brushstrokes) in digital and digitized physical painting. This dialogue between organic matter (cardboard, acrylic) and virtual (digital projections) embodies a post-humanist coexistence, reflecting the dualities dear to the artist (nature/technique, madness/genius). Philosophy of Abstraction as a Universal Language
My urban cuneiform hopes to transcend writing to become a semiotic system of marginality, where each abstract symbol condenses narratives of resistance or belonging. This "writing" refers to the Derridian notion (Derrida makes différance the mother of concepts (for example, culture is deferred, suspended in nature), but also the very dynamic of identity, of life: we never coincide with ourselves, we constantly disappear and reappear differently.) of différance: (différance is the difference that ruins the cult of identity and the dominance of the Same over the Other; it signifies that there is no origin) a language always behind itself, fragmented, but capable of revealing the collective unconscious of contemporary tribes. By combining manual meditation (cutting, collage) and digital speed, I attempt to crystallize the paradox of our time: a desire for the sacred (artisanal ritual) in a desacralized world (screens, data flows).
Conclusion: A Neo-Tribal Genesis :
This work not only attempts to pay homage to Van Gogh's work; it reactivates his expressionist utopia through the prism of current identity struggles. By making the city a palimpsest of subconscious signs, I propose a counter-archaeology where the artistic past and the digital present coexist—not as opposition, but as a mutant symbiosis. The "yellow vision" thus becomes a manifesto: art as a permeable membrane between reality and dream, between trauma and rebirth, between Van Gogh's nocturnal bat and the flashing neon lights of our urban caverns.
tribute to Van Gogh : Flying Fox
see original at: Van Gogh Museum
format / media / size / speed / timing / éditions :
3840 x 2160 px / 4k mp4 / 116 MB / 8 fps / 59s / 1/1