“Surface Effect” is a series of slides, formerly used as materials for art history lessons, laser drilled according to patterns taken from an old dictionary. In this context, the viewer perceives the works through a burnt surface effect, drawing shapes and signs. These works, which I have never seen in real life, were directly photographed in catalogs reasoned, then developed on slides. Their projection is integrated into an installation arranging documents, postcards, books and objects that we find in museum bookstores.
Student at the Fine Arts of Tunis, I did not have access to original works in institutions or galleries. It was only through history books, the media or the Internet that I accessed the meaning of the work. I thus proceed to an ontological reappraisal of conventional definitions of the work of art, of its exhibition, of its apprehension and of its semantic understanding.