Intangible

Locked away in the humid atmosphere of his apartment, a naked man is slumped in front of his television. Garbage bags litter the floor, objects accumulate, the space shrinks. Alone on his island of waste, man seems cut off from the world for ages. But one morning, he disappears for Well... A few weeks later, a cleaning team is sent to place to empty the premises. Among the agents, Adel, is doing his first day in the company. Very quickly, the young man cannot help but wonder on the reasons which led the last tenant to such isolation. A reckless curiosity that leads him to dangerously identify with the mysterious occupant. In this comic strip, Jérôme Dubois takes an interest in the hikikomori phenomenon, a psychological state that pushes some people to live cloistered in their room for months or even years. This starting point serves as a foundation to question our relationship to invisible presences and to the memory of places. The book's chromatic range, made of red/green/blue, accentuates this play between interior and exterior space by summoning a view of the world that does not only passes through the screens. From the whole thing is born an atmosphere as luminous as heavy, almost unreal, like the ghost through whose eyes we follow a part of history. With Immatériel, Jérôme Dubois has created a sumptuous and metaphysical work succeeding in the daring bet of putting images and words on the invisible.