Pierrick Sorin

Binge Drinking

2001 - 2011

The commission

The many associations that set up awareness programmes on the dangers of alcohol mainly intervene on the effects of alcohol from a medical point of view by insisting on the chemical aspects with their biological and neurological consequences, etc.

However, the context has evolved in particular with the appearance of "premixes" or "alcopops" (alcoholic drinks, whose strong alcoholic taste is masked by the addition of sugar and flavourings) which young people consume in large quantities over a very short period of time. This phenomenon led the volunteers of these associations to question their usual methods and results. Moreover, the problem is being more and more recognised by political organisations. Articles in major daily newspapers (Le Monde, Libération, etc.) regularly report on the awareness of the growing and direct influence of alcohol in various forms of violence that France and other European countries have experienced in recent years, in the suburbs, but also in small towns and rural areas.

By means of a strong, surprising and culturally appropriate contemporary work aimed at the population concerned, the aim of this commission was to "update" the means of preventing the harmful influence of alcohol consumption commonly known as ‘Binge drinking’.

The artwork

The work proposed by the artist Pierrick Sorin can be defined by three verbs: attract, move, inform. The work is a three-faceted dice. The two side-walls present "animated images", three superimposed screens with an effect of continuity from one screen to the other.

The front wall contains a window onto a miniature theatrical production, created according to the technique of "optical theatre". Small filmed characters appear in a real palpable setting. Thanks to computer programming, the virtual characters perform on real objects according to a scenario. The story is comic and tragic, like a dream that turns into a nightmare. Fatal tragedy follows laughter…

The artist

Born in 1960 in Nantes, Pierrick Sorin is a video artist. He makes short films and visual devices in which he makes fun, in a burlesque way, of human existence and artistic creation. A fervent practitioner of self-filming, he is often the sole actor in the stories he invents. In particular, he creates small "optical theatres", a mixture of ingenious DIY and new technologies, which allow him to appear as if by magic, in space, in the form of a small hologram and among real objects. His works have been presented in the most important places of contemporary art: Fondation Cartier, Centre Georges Pompidou, Tate Gallery in London, Guggenheim Museum in New York, Metropolitan Museum of photography in Tokyo... Pierrick Sorin's artistic attitude, while contemporary and intellectual, remains accessible to a wide public.