Patrick Bouvet's 'Pulsion lumière' Explores Star Culture Through Cut-Up Technique

Patrick Bouvet, known for his 2010 album 'Pulsion phantom' which highlighted neglected film scores from 1970s-80s fantasy and sci-fi cinema, returns to the theme of drive with a new book, 'Pulsion lumière', published by Editions de l'olivier. Employing a cut-up and sampling method reminiscent of his earlier work 'In situ' (1999), Bouvet extracts phrases from press articles featuring celebrities, then loops, recombines, and rearranges them to expose the unconscious of celebrity journalism. The resulting text evokes monsters and zombies, akin to George A. Romero's films, depicting creatures driven by impulses rather than reason, feeding on others' lives. Bouvet suggests this is not merely metaphorical: spectators psychically feed on stars' lives, and stars borrow tragedies from others. The narrative culminates in a model being killed in a nightclub, a crime whose perpetrator and motive are secondary in a generalized zombieland. The work is presented as a brilliant reflection on contemporary society rather than a B-movie.