Our Fancy Restaurant, Leisure VI, background completed, guache, acrylic on paper, 2015.

« In the meantime the association has grown. He is developing a second project in the catering field. He collaborated with a Parisian restaurant and renovated it to give it a more chic and natural atmosphere, thanks in particular to a giant fountain. To celebrate the inauguration of « Our fancy restaurant »,  they publish an announcement in the form of a cover letter, retracing the history of this association and discussing its ambitious new project. Customers make reservations and pre-order their menus by choosing the seat they would prefer to occupy. Elegant waitresses and waiters ensure service. The tables begin to fill up. Customers are not only from the region or country, but from all over the world. Reservations are still open via various online or regular means… » extract from synopsis, Leisure.

Hyperspectacles in hypermodern society

With the series of LEISURE, the group IASLD speaks of hypermodern society where we live in.  

In this hypermodern society, individuals no longer work towards achieving the common interest. They believe that they can form themselves according to their own taste, by choosing their education and geographical location, etc. This continuity of choice makes them delude themselves about the possibility of total freedom in the name of the neo-nomadism. Ironically, this autonomy obeys and submits to capitalist rule. In other words, they are voluntarily autonomous in relation to the choices given, the majority of which will be involuntarily linked to economic interest.

At the heart of the capitalist and democratic regime which are both coexisting and contradictory, a pursuit of personalized happiness of hedonistic, libertarian individuals create a double contradiction on what we define as ‘freedom’. That of hypermodernity presupposes consumption to have freedom in the pursuit of happiness, while the ideology of democracy implies total freedom of one’s own decisions.

In an interactive way, the series of paintings ‘Leisure’ shows the way in which individuals spend their ‘free’ time. Delicately designed devices such as spectacular events are used to pose questionable questions about controlled freedom in the abundance of choice. They appear to the public with media devices to encourage spectator participation. Its slogan, called ‘unification’ of the world, could translate into a large market which brings together consumers; this is transformed, in a sense, into the democratic principle of ‘egalitarian cultural sharing’.

Carring out a promotional presentation, offering a description of the event and its background, with the aim of bringing together a « phantom mass » of Internet participants  in various categories in fictitious milieux – such as the sport business, shopping, tourisme and catering. The series attempts a parodic representation of real phenomena, hyperspectacles in our hypermodern society.