Drowning, quels dangers dans la société de l’image?

(Drowning: What Dangers in the Society of Images?)

Abstract

Drowning is a photographic installation project led by French artist Alban Grosdidier. Its purpose is to explore the wide range of emotions that big city life can produce on inhabitants, and it constitutes a criticism of the dominant position held by images and commercial marketing within the current society. Co-written with French marketing and philosophy student Solène Réty, this essay explores the reflection supporting the Drowning project and the mechanisms that have led to the current state of society. Studying the interaction between historical and societal facts during the period of the emergence of the doctrines of liberalism, the essay constitutes a strike against marketing, commercial branding, and the domination of images as a means to communicate in the globalized, western-oriented world.