Black Friday
The day of the discards
On Black Friday everyone looks at what gets bought. We open the Salon des Refusés.
For winter, digital agents built dozens of worlds around the artworks of our cold-weather pieces. Every attempt hangs here, kept and thrown out, each one near its garment.
In 1863 Paris opened a salon for the paintings the jury had rejected. This is our Salon des Refusés.
Every attempt thrown out here was discarded by the same agent that had made it, and then made again. In painting this is called a pentimento. The Strand world had a moon nobody had asked for.
- 39 images proposed
- 35 kept
- 4 thrown out
- 21 pieces
-
01 · Insectide Vision Kept Paper and halftone, the clearing stays free for the garment. No people, no lettering. -
02 · Grey Noise Kept Torn paper and halftone, the plain stays free. No people, no lettering. -
03 · X-Ray Thrown out It looked like a photograph of hanging sheets. The world has to be paper and halftone. -
04 · X-Ray Kept Second try. Coarse halftone and flat ink, it no longer looks like a photo. -
05 · X-Ray Kept A single object, made of the print. Paper and halftone, no hands, no people. -
06 · X-Ray Kept The same world seen from another point. Same rendering, no people, no lettering. -
07 · X-Ray Kept The same world widened for the first screen, with the sky left free for the text. -
08 · Unkiss Kept Torn paper and snow, the square stays free. No faces, no posters with figures. -
09 · Unkiss Kept A single object, made of the print. Paper and halftone, no hands, no people. -
10 · Unkiss Kept The same world seen from another point. Same rendering, no people, no lettering. -
11 · Unkiss Kept The same world widened for the first screen, with the sky left free for the text. -
12 · Tidegrey Kept Black paper and white reflections like the print, the lake stays open. -
13 · Tidegrey Kept A single object, made of the print. Paper and halftone, no hands, no people. -
14 · Tidegrey Kept The same world seen from another point. Same rendering, no people, no lettering. -
15 · Black Camo Kept Halftone and torn paper, the valley stays free. No people, no lettering. -
16 · Rift Kept The lime line is the one on the sleeve. No people, no lettering. -
17 · Strand Ivory Kept The shapes of the print become paths, the plateau stays free. -
18 · Triodrome Thrown out Panels and fog looked like a photograph. It is made again in halftone. -
19 · Triodrome Kept Second try. Halftone and paper, the mirrors reflect only fog. -
20 · Bloodrose Kept Halftone and peeling paper, the path at the foot of the wall stays free. -
21 · Coloured Thrown out The light and the large windows made it look like a photo of a real building. -
22 · Coloured Kept Second try, in halftone. It no longer looks like a photo of a real building. -
23 · Romanticbandana Kept Paisley, stars and checks from the print. No skulls, no faces, no letters. -
24 · Mouth Kept The border between white and halftone is the print of the shirt. No faces. -
25 · Mouth Kept A single object, made of the print. Paper and halftone, no hands, no people. -
26 · Mouth Kept The same world seen from another point. Same rendering, no people, no lettering. -
27 · Rugged Kept Paper torn in layers. No numbers, no lettering. -
28 · Rugged Kept A single object, made of the print. Paper and halftone, no hands, no people. -
29 · Rugged Kept The same world seen from another point. Same rendering, no people, no lettering. -
30 · Strand Thrown out Waves and rocks looked like a night photo, and there was a moon nobody had asked for. -
31 · Strand Kept Second try, without a moon. The round shapes of the print become marks in the water. -
32 · Classic Kept Folded black paper, it reads as a scale model and not as a building. -
33 · Stream Kept Sheets in halftone and gradients, the floor stays free. No faces, no lettering. -
34 · No Genius Kept The lettering of the garment stays only on the garment. No letters in the world. -
35 · Black Noise Kept Collage of torn paper and halftone, the wheel of the print becomes a constellation. -
36 · Concept Kept Abstract smudges, no figures, the corridor stays free. -
37 · Tide Kept The same world widened for the first screen, with the sky left free for the text. -
38 · Tide Kept A single object, made of the print. Paper and halftone, no hands, no people. -
39 · Tide Kept The same world seen from another point. Same rendering, no people, no lettering.
The rules of the next round
Every round of agents ends with rules for the next one. They usually come from a discard, and the next round follows them. Here are the ones about images, texts and the shop window, each with the round it comes from and the case that gave rise to it.
Round 01 · 12 October 2026
No garments hung by the neck, no ropes.
A hoodie hanging from a single cable recalled something that should not be shown.
As a reference only the photo of the garment on its own, never a photo of someone wearing it.
From a photo of the garment being worn, the image carried over the person in the photo.
No tools or gestures that make the print.
Three plates showed the tools that make the print and made up how the artwork was born.
No moon and no sea stacks.
Three plates had the moon or sea stacks, and they ended up in the bin.
Round 02 · 14 October 2026
The garment is never redrawn. Its photo goes into the world, cut out.
Redrawn together with the world, the garment was no longer the same as the one in the photo.
Never a world that looks like a photo or a fabric. Paper, halftone, illustration, scale model.
A photographic knitted world next to a T-shirt read as the fabric of the garment.
No eyes, mouths, faces or people in the worlds, not even drawn ones.
In the Love Act room there were rings that looked like eyes.
Every garment has a composition of its own. A garment floating in the middle of a background does not get in.
Five garments out of six floated in the middle of a background, like any product.
A world that recalls a famous work is made again, with the motifs of the print.
The Romanticbandana stairwell recalled a famous print.
Flat icons that repeat a motif of the print stay.
The skulls in the Romanticbandana room come from the frame of the bandanas, and they stayed.
The name of the garment does not end a story.
The Tide poem ended with the name, and it looked like the story of how the print had got it.
Round 03 · 18 October 2026
When an artwork has several admitted pieces, different rows show different pieces of that artwork.
The Strand Ivory crewneck sweatshirt alone was in seven rows out of twelve, and six other Strand pieces with every size were left out of everything.
No piece in more than half of the rows.
One sweatshirt was in nine rows out of twelve. With 22 pieces for 113 places, the same pieces came back everywhere.
The place for a piece that has never been in goes only to one that got three votes out of three.
A sweatshirt got in that way with the photo juror against it. The white on white face of the print can hardly be seen.
The piece a look starts from must also have the four middle sizes.
The juror only looked at the matched piece, so 55 looks out of 83 started from a piece without the four middle sizes.