By Sophie Exbrayat
I — The Discovery of the Circle The outside of the circle is initially a very concrete vicious circle that grabs you from a young age. In my case, it happened when I was still somewhat yellowish; I am now brown thanks to my knowledge that has darkened me. I was nine ten years old. Children would gather, an assembly of young souls thirsty for the power of the cour/playground, discussing together, the word is important, it is in bold and underlined. They talked, together, about the future, hence tomorrow. We were in this very strange period where you do know it, are still intertwined the need to fulfill oneself, hence to play, and to be an adult. "What are you doing?" the primary kids would ask. "We're talking." Talking had become the usual activity of the Cour/Court. Note that the words "playground" and "court" are the same in France because, paradoxically enough, talking was also the main activity of the King's Court, of which I was not a part, let's be clear. However, this treatise is not about the outside of the Court, regardless of its value, but about the outside of the Circle. II — The Malicious Omnipresence of the Circle The circle flows and then snaps, like a hard truth. So why choose this name? So intense, burning, and hard: the circle. Firstly, to highlight the immorality of the latter. This is as vicious as I prefaced at the beginning. Indeed, this perfidious one hides in every corner of the mundane life. An assembly, a circle; a creative writing classroom, a circle; a wild dance with friends at 4 a.m., a circle; a discreet conversation, a circle; a time-out, a circle. What is particularly painful about the circle is its infinite continuation. Once formed, it is impossible to take a place within it. This is where its perversion is revealed, in its original sense: "inclined to do evil and tempted by devious means." Contrary to what one might think, the circle is an active being, that is in action. Thus, the circle corrupts and isolates loners, pushing them further and further until the ultimate limit, the supreme circle: the Earth[1]. Starting from a playground, the outside of the circle reverberates everywhere in a loner's life until the last and fatal exclusion. III — Dependency to the Circle If I choose to address it today, it is because the circle remains an open question for me. I have never been part of the circle just like the Court, which could be a true accomplishment in itself. The idea that I could fulfill myself without the need for others' recognition. However, the truth is more insidious. I tried to be part of the circle, always tried, but the circle did not want me. The closest I got to a circle was by standing in the second row, looking over a mocking shoulder, grimacing with a trembling smile and flexing my feet to the maximum to maintain the required centimeters before the junior high inflation. The perversion of the circle lies, secondly, in the dependency to the creature. Look for yourself, I am nine ten years old and I am excluded from the circle for the first time. My sole purpose then became entering that sacrebleu circle, as I called it, the lecherous. The circle is an obsession for me I want to be included in the group, for one of the first times in my life. I try a lot, I fail a lot. I grew up, took on strange colors, darker, wiser. I am more delicate; I no longer put my head above shoulders, well, not usually. Sometimes I rest my head on shoulders. Well. IV — The False Hopes of the Circle Despite these efforts, the circle will remain impenetrable, impermeable to me. I must specify, to my great misfortune, that on rare occasions, a circle captures me. And so it's unbelievable: the circle is made for me, the circle loves me, and I love the circle. But the circle never appreciates me enough to engulf me entirely, like the olives from the appetizer. The circle never appreciates me enough to give me a place; he uses me as a circus animal. I strive to perform as best I can until he gets tired of me. In that case, he spits me out, like a not-so-fresh fetus, and eagerly takes another animal, the one next to me, who's popular, and he keeps it. Why am I never interesting enough for the circle? I apologize, but that will remain an open point in the treatise, I never really knew to be honest. The vicious circle, the lecherous, acts on me with the same repetitive pattern: the obsession with the circle leads me to a circle, I try to be swallowed by it, he rejects me almost immediately or, with luck, shortly afterward. I move on to another, and so on. V — Consequences of the Outside of the Circle The consequences of the outside of the circle are numerous, you can find them in my other works. The outside of the circle is the cursed zone of my existence; it envelops me in a permanent pain, the pain of Pierrot. Some want to please everyone; my only goal is to please a circle. The exclusion from the circle is almost a certain guarantee of never finding one's place in the world, thus this is how one becomes a stranger to it. As Sartre aptly expresses, better than I ever could, hell is the others. The circle is lecherous, others face each other but turn their backs on you, ignoring your presence, though they can feel your breath on their shoulder—the bastards, the infernals. The circle is sealed to the presence of strangers to the world, without a possible breach, even though he was the one that made them feel strange in the first place, right? Hell, Sartre dared to say.. ________________ [1] Technically, the Earth is not truly a circle but an irregularly shaped ellipsoid with a slight flattening at the poles. It is, therefore, more oval in shape, but I don't have a theory on the perversion of ovals, so let's not nitpick.
Sophie Exbrayat is a young French artist, particularly interested in multicultural and multidisciplinary art that highlights marginalized individuals. In her pictorial work, as well as in her manuscripts, she seeks her own truth, aiming to be as close to herself as possible, in contact with the shadows and ghosts of the world.
“I appreciate the absurd, the burlesque, not just for the sake of being absurd, but because I try to write my truth on the page, and life, like Camus, seems absurd to me.”
Among her inspirations, we find Camus, but also Virginia Woolf, speaking of “streams of consciousness,” and the Parisian rapper BB Jacques and his album titled “Poésie d’une Pulsion” (Poetry of Impulse). In her work, Sophie enjoys different kinds of art, incorporating rhythms into her writings, or live music into her plays, thereby creating a new sense of collectivity, a theme also frequently explored in her work.