A stunned crowd faces a raging fire that we never get to see. Positioning the viewer as a spectator of spectators, Le mal des ardents probes the obscure facets of social media news feeds and comment sections.
Drawing from the artist’s documentation of people facing the Notre Dame fire in Paris in 2019, the work recalls the emotions that reverberated through the crowd and their collective behaviours, reconstructing them through photogrammetry and sound staging. This recreation captures a pervasive atmosphere that still reverberates – a period characterised by a global loss of reference points, in which information and rumour blur, nationalism and radicalisation surge, all while media platforms exacerbate conflicts for their own gain.
Supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.