We are immersed in an era of supermodernity, an age defined by excesses: of information—the acceleration of historical time—spatial overabundance—the nullification of distance by electronic media and transportation—and an excess of self-reflexive individuality. In this context, the idea of place is giving way to non-places: designed spaces in which social relations are tangential and the boundary between the individual and the group is increasingly mediated. Media plays an important role in the creation of non-places, by favoring a removed form of communication made pervasive and extensive through mobile devices. The blurring of the line between media and actuality extends its definition to encompass not only traditional modes such as radio and television but to a web of systems that regulate and determine relationships between people and collective entities. As a visual communicator, I seek to understand the evolving relationship between individuals and society by focusing on the spatial-social codes and gestures that permeate and define our interactions. In my thesis project, I explore the boundary between personal, subjective space and social space in their physical manifestations. I perceive the latent tension that exists between what is expressed and what is kept to ourselves in a highly codified environment. I depict the inadequacies of media narratives to portray human drama and the strength of these codified visual systems to represent the drama of living inside their constraints. I look for ways of representing the duality of our shared vulnerability in the alienation of contemporary living perpetuated through media, and our acceptance of its imbalances.

Cette thèse propose une étude comparative des œuvres de Pierre Bergounioux et de Peter Kurzeck. Il s’agit d’interroger la relation entre les réalités socioculturelles, géographiques et historiques des régions d’enfance des auteurs et le contexte de l’extrême contemporain, qui tend à l’uniformisation du monde. Le microcosme du lieu d’origine, ancré dans un terroir qui engendre des traits culturels et langagiers locaux, se lit comme un lieu universel. Ce dernier, bien que localisé géographiquement et précisément nommé, devient l’endroit réel et figuré d’un état désormais révolu de l’humanité qui s’oppose à un autre lieu universel : le non-lieu standardisé. Il s’agira de confronter les vertus élémentaires de la mémoire longue aux traits caractéristiques de l’époque surmoderne, c’est-à-dire l’homogénéisation de l’espace, l’accélération du temps et l’individualisme croissant. La réalité surmoderne semble se trouver au-dessus des facultés cognitives de l’homme, qui peine à ordonner les données instables de celle-ci. La construction du sujet autobiographique doit donc faire face aux derniers archaïsmes, ainsi qu’à la « liberté périlleuse » (U. Beck) d’une existence détachée de l’origine. L’écriture mémorielle assure tour à tour la continuité du sujet, œuvre en faveur de la communauté perdue et tente de livrer, à travers un passé revisité, une analyse lucide du monde contemporain qui s’adresse à un lecteur perdu. En reproduisant le flottement de la mémoire entre souvenir et oubli, l’écrit littéraire se pense comme une contre-proposition face à la « mondialisation de la mémoire » (H. Rousso) qui engendre un rapport similaire au passé, celui, paradoxal, d’un oubli accéléré et d’une nostalgie excessive. / This thesis offers a comparative study of the works of Pierre Bergounioux and Peter Kurzeck. Its aim is to question the relationship between the sociocultural, geographical and historical features of the regions where these writers spent their respective childhoods and the context of the “extreme contemporary”, which tends towards a standardisation of the world. The microcosm of the place of origin, rooted in a local setting which goes hand in hand with a set of local cultural and linguistic elements, is depicted as a universal place. This place, albeit geographically localised and specifically named, becomes both literally and figuratively the location of a now bygone state of mankind which clashes with another universal place: the standardised “non-place”. This study will bring face to face the fundamental virtues of long-term historical memory and the distinctive features of the “supermodern” period, that is to say homogenisation of space, acceleration of time and growing individualism. The supermodern reality seems to be located above the cognitive faculties of human beings, who have trouble putting its unstable data in order. The construction of the autobiographical subject therefore has to face the last remaining archaisms, as well as the “hazardous freedom” (U. Beck) of an existence cut from its origin. The writing of memory successively allows for a continuity of the subject, works in favour of the lost community, and tries to provide the bewildered reader with a sound analysis of the contemporary world by revisiting the past. By reproducing the wavering of memory between remembrance and forgetfulness, literary writing envisions itself as a counter-proposition to the “globalisation of memory” (H. Rousso) which brings about a similar, paradoxical relationship to the past, characterised by accelerated forgetfulness and excessive nostalgia.