Marc-Aurèle Debut’s exhibition ON REPEAT closes this Saturday, but the questions it asks about dating, desire and emotional vulnerability feel more relevant than ever. We spoke to the artist about intimacy, loneliness, repetition and why something as ordinary as a pair of underwear can become an archive of memory.
Your exhibition ON REPEAT begins with a very personal observation about dating apps. At what point did you realise this wasn’t just your experience, but something much bigger?
It begins with me, but it quickly became something much bigger than me.
Most of my work starts from a personal experience, not because I’m interested in autobiography, but because it’s often the best place to begin asking broader questions. I’m interested in how contemporary systems—whether technological, economic or architectural—organise the way we experience our bodies, our desires and our relationships.
ON REPEAT began when I recognised something in myself. While using dating apps, I realised that even when I genuinely liked someone, part of me was already looking for reasons why it wouldn’t work, or wondering whether there might be someone else just one swipe away. It wasn’t a comfortable thing to admit, but instead of treating it as a personal flaw, I became curious about where that impulse came from.
The more I reflected on it and spoke to friends, the more I realised it wasn’t just about me. We often think of intimacy as something deeply private, yet it never exists outside the world we live in. Contemporary systems don’t create these behaviours on their own, but they amplify a culture built around comparison, optimisation and endless choice. Those values inevitably shape how we encounter one another.
The exhibition isn’t a critique from the outside—I’m implicated in these systems too. Making ON REPEAT became a way of understanding why something that felt intensely personal also seemed to be shared by so many others.
One line from the exhibition really stayed with me: “Today it can sometimes feel easier to sit on someone’s face than tell them you love them.” How did you arrive at that thought?
That thought kept returning to me while I was making the exhibition.
It isn’t a judgement of other people—it’s something I’ve recognised in myself too. I’ve often found physical intimacy easier than emotional vulnerability, and learning to become more emotionally open with friends, family and partners has been an important journey for me.
Contemporary systems haven’t invented those difficulties, but they have changed the environment in which we navigate them. It’s never been easier to meet people, yet many of us still describe feeling profoundly lonely.
I’m not interested in offering answers. I’m interested in asking what happens when intimacy becomes organised through systems that reward speed, comparison and constant availability. What kinds of relationships become possible—and what might get lost along the way?
One of the exhibition’s most striking works, Circulation, is made from hundreds of donated pairs of men’s underwear. When did you realise you weren’t collecting garments, but people’s memories?
The conversations became as important as the underwear itself.
What surprised me wasn’t only the stories people shared, but how difficult many found it to part with something so ordinary. People would often laugh and say, “I don’t know why this is so hard.”
A pair of underwear had become inseparable from a first love, a relationship, a hookup, heartbreak, pleasure or someone who was no longer in their life.
That hesitation completely transformed the work. I realised I wasn’t simply collecting underwear—I was collecting the emotional weight people had invested in everyday objects. Some people took weeks or even months before deciding they were ready to donate theirs.
The underwear is joined together with the plastic kimble tags normally used to attach labels to new clothing. I liked how these tiny disposable objects quietly connect something deeply intimate to systems of retail, consumption and circulation. As the underwear moves endlessly through the installation, private memories become part of a larger collective flow.
Throughout ON REPEAT, repetition becomes almost a character in itself. Are we trapped by repetition, or is it also how we make sense of our lives?
Definitely both.
Repetition is how we build our lives. It’s how habits form, relationships deepen and communities are sustained. But repetition can also become automatic. We scroll, swipe and compare almost without noticing.
Throughout the exhibition I wanted repetition to feel both reassuring and unsettling. Circulation endlessly loops through the drying racks. Auto Repeat has no beginning or end. Sounds, forms and gestures keep returning.
I’m interested in the point where repetition shifts from ritual into routine—from something that supports us to something that quietly begins to shape our behaviour.
Your work explores systems that shape how we relate to one another, but it never feels cynical. After making ON REPEAT, are you hopeful that we can break those patterns, or simply become more aware of them?
I don’t think resistance begins by rejecting technology or imagining we can somehow step outside the systems we live in. They’re woven into almost every aspect of contemporary life, including the way we work, communicate and build relationships. I’m part of those systems too.
What interests me is awareness. Once we recognise that our behaviours aren’t entirely natural or inevitable, we create space to question them. We can ask ourselves why we keep repeating certain patterns, what those patterns are giving us, and what they might be taking away.
I’m optimistic because I don’t think our capacity for intimacy has disappeared. I think it’s often buried beneath systems that reward speed, comparison and constant novelty. My work isn’t about offering solutions or telling people how to live. It’s about slowing us down long enough to notice the structures shaping our lives and asking whether we want to keep reproducing them.
Although ON REPEAT closes this Saturday, the ideas behind it feel increasingly relevant. Where do you think these questions will take your practice next?
I hope they’re not only talking about the exhibition. I hope they’re talking about themselves.
Maybe they’re asking whether they’ve ever treated someone as replaceable, or whether they’ve felt replaceable themselves. Maybe they’re thinking about the people they’ve loved, the objects they’ve held onto, or why emotional vulnerability can sometimes feel harder than physical intimacy.
If ON REPEAT leaves people with one question, I hope it’s this: How do we stay with one another in a culture that constantly encourages us to move on?
I don’t expect everyone to arrive at the same answer. In fact, I hope they don’t. If people leave still debating that question with the person they came with, then I like to think the exhibition is still unfolding beyond the gallery walls.
Finally… if someone dismisses the exhibition as “just a load of pants”, what would you say?
I’d probably laugh because, on one level, they’re absolutely right.
It is a load of pants.
But that’s precisely why I chose underwear. It’s one of the most ordinary things we own, yet it’s also one of the closest things to our bodies. Through collecting them, I realised people weren’t giving me fabric—they were giving me memories.
If someone only sees a pile of underwear, that’s completely fine. But if they spend a little longer with the work, I hope they begin to think about the lives these garments have lived, the relationships they’ve witnessed and how something so ordinary can quietly become an archive of intimacy.
If someone leaves thinking differently about intimacy after spending time with what first appeared to be “just a load of pants”, then I think the work has done its job.
Auto Repeat, 2026 4min 25s sound composition.
Marc-Aurèle Debut, 25th Jun–1st Aug 2026 GLASSHOUSE
Follow: @marcaureledebut
