The Out-in-the-Open Unconscious. An Anthropological Approach to the Poetic Potential of the Cruising Spot

For five years now, Éric Chauvier has supervised the doctoral work of Adrien Le Bot, an architecure graduate. Entitled “Cruising Spots: Practices and Imaginaries of Repressed Territories”, this research intersects with the fields of architecture, urban studies, art and the tools of anthropology. Adrien Le Bot’s works, odd pieces of design furniture along with art installation bearing a powerful sexual connotation, are the core of this article. A peculiar red and angle-less bench that entices disturbing positions. A long, phallic-shaped, gold tunnel. A billboard on which some red light beams, in the dark heart of a forest. How does Adrien Le Bot slide from surveying his field to intuitively creating these works? It is this creative process that will be examined: the transition from the liminarity of the field to the imaginary potential of the works. Then, the heuristic power of fictionalizing these works will be explored.