Philippe Alliet

The soft law of séries

There is no doubt that Claude Monet was the first painter who used the track of series. May it be of haystacks or cathedrals, he used to truthfully report his feelings and emotions through his variations on a theme. Photography quickly became a means of reproducing this manner, since the plain sequence linked to the film roll marvelously fitted this exercise.

Nowadays, no doubt the Internet phenomena has drastically modified our perception of images. The words of “cascade” or “image flow” immediately comes to our mind. We cannot escape from telescoping profusion and overabundance.

I seek to capture the vividness and fragility of existence attached to its abundance, paradoxes, softness or violence by simultaneously creating various series that impose themselves to me… My series certainly don’t have force of law like what we call in French “law of series” (or “Murphy’s law”) that induces that rare and mainly negative events happen to mysteriously attract each other in some kind of synchronicity. There is nothing mysterious and negative in my series but rather a deep and jubilatory exploration of different themes… So, this ”law” – I put the word in quotation marks- does not have the sharpness of the justice of men (Dura lex sed lex, the Roman used to say). It’s a soft law, an inclination, a world : the soft law of series… Dulca lex…