Marc-Aurèle Debut: “Today it can sometimes feel easier to sit on someone’s face than tell them you love them.”

We often think of intimacy as something deeply private, yet it never exists outside the world we live in. Contemporary systems don’t create these behaviours on their own, but they amplify a culture built around comparison, optimisation and endless choice. Marc-Aurèle Debut Emo(r)ji 2026 Aluminum 30 x 146 cm Photography by Ollie Hammick Courtesy of GatheringOne line from the exhibition really stayed with me: “Today it can sometimes feel easier to sit on someone’s face than tell them you love them.” Throughout ON REPEAT, repetition becomes almost a character in itself. I don’t think resistance begins by rejecting technology or imagining we can somehow step outside the systems we live in.