Study of French Modernism: the peripheries of Dada and Surrealism

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The following is the results in each of 5 themes which costitute our studies:1. About Raymond Roussel. Based on our interest to illustrations in Roussel's Nouvelles Impressions d'Afrique, we analyzed a lot of images close to stop-motion photography in his works. Now we can say that they have something to do with his monomaniac adherence to the themes of death and rebirth.2. About Arthur Cravan. We published a book explaining en full the life and the works of Arthur Cravan, a pioneer of Dada. On the other hand, this book gave us the opportunity to describe the movements of modernism developed here and there in the world in the beginning of the 20^<th> century.3. About Michel Leiris. He was a surrealist who was especially interested in the problem of modernism. So we examined the notion of his favorite term "presence" in the purpose of defining the sense of modernity in his works. That brought us another subject concerning Leiris: exoticism.4. About Dada and Surrealism. Walter Benjamin and Surrealists share the same interest in a sort of garbage, something useless in everyday life. In other words, they both tried to pick up a kind of unconsciousness. That is why they are also interested in photography and cinema as a way to catch the unconsciousness.5. About the culture, the society, the thought of 20^<th> century. Through our studies, we recognize that the modernism has something to do with the exoticism. So we should orient our research to the problem of post-colonialism. On the other hand, we can try to find in visual arts some elements close to an "unconsciousness" or a "body", in a word, a kind of exoticism for the rational subject.