Peinture : obsolescence déprogrammée – La peinture dans l’environnement numérique

The book Peinture : obsolescence déprogrammée (Painting: Unplanned Obsolescence) focuses on the current state and future of painting in the digital age. It is a thought-provoking illustration of how the pictorial medium evolves and reinvents itself in the face of new technologies. The omnipresence of screens and the encroachment of algorithms into everyday life, as recent as they are meteoric, have led to a different way of viewing that some painters have sought to portray in their works. The proliferation of digital "windows" and images upsets and challenges the concept of the painting as a window as defined by Alberti during the Renaissance — a concept that has formed the cornerstone of Western painting and image from the dawn of the modern era until the present day. While hybrid forms of painting gained ground in the mid-20th century through its exposure to photography, cinema and video art, it was digital technology that shaped one of the most prolific emulations from the 1990s-2000s onwards. The aim of the book is to provide an outline of current painting practice, by looking at the reinventions and recent reconfigurations of the pictorial medium within a very wide-ranging corpus of works. At the same time, the inclusion of photographs, digital prints and installations highlights the extent to which painting is still liable to nourish and inspire other media. The book shows that, far from being made redundant by new technologies, painting is being revitalised by them and "unplans" this obsolescence.