The program shutdown

2025
Oil on linen
25.6 x 31.9 in

THE PROGRAM SHUTDOWN

This is the story of a late date that is abruptly interrupted by the hasty departure of one of the protagonists, terrified by a sudden apparition.

This painting is a Proust Madeleine for Generation X, or should I rather say, a Tagada strawberry. The painting is of course a reference to Steven Spielberg’s film E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), but also to Alien (Ridley Scott and Hans Ruedi Giger, 1979), or perhaps even to Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1990). We find the decoration and design characteristic of these decades, with the orange color on the walls and the rubber ficus typical of the 1970s and 1980s.

The acronym on the screen test pattern (test pattern that signified the end of programs) of analog television seems strange enough to make us wonder if we have not switched to another dimension, or to see the sign of an extraterrestrial presence that would use our antennas to broadcast its program.

The ghostly hand on the man's shoulder can also refer to the "haunting" of the deleterious influence of television, which represented a real societal debate at the time. The gripping hand would then be the physical emanation of the influence of the small screen. We remember the film Nightmare On Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984), where Freddy Krueger, the bogeyman, comes out of the TV screen to grab the very young Johnny Depp, who had fallen asleep in his bed.

The painting does not tell the end of the story, but I am not convinced that the poor boy wants to see his cowardly sweetheart again after this aborted meeting and this incredible adventure.