As re.trait digitale prepares for its launch in summer 2025, we turn our gaze toward the contours of a new art public, where the 'retreat' emerges as both an aesthetic posture of neutrality and a subtle instrument of neoliberal cultural production.

 

  Anchored in Jacques Derrida’s concept of the re-trait, which foregrounds the double gesture of withdrawal and trace, we approach the act of retreating not as a flight from reality but as a process of inscription – an act that leaves marks demanding interpretation. We seek to critically examine how hyperreal cultures within the art sphere stage retreat as a mediated spectacle, disguising control as liberation through aesthetic strategy. By examining the performative and ideological architectures and public imaginaries underpinning these drifts through reviews, conversations, and other fragments, re.trait digitale seeks to illuminate the subtle entanglements of cultural production with frameworks of influence and commodification.