Symposiums and seminars
Gatherings 1ffffff organized by La Chaire Arts & Sciences
Behavioral Matter – To compose with the living
Seminar and “Dissect” evening | Centre Pompidou | March 29, 2019
Be it in art, design, or science, how can we create with “the living”? How can we deal with living or partially living systems or organisms that require us to rethink the relationships among humans, non-humans, and environments?
Because the very notion of “life” is now difficult to define, putting into action living forms calls for new types of cooperation between artistic and scientific disciplines.
“To Compose with the Living”: symposium with Monika Bakke, Thierry Bardini, Laurence Baudelot, Sonja Baumel, Marie-Ange Brayer, Samuel Bianchini, Oron Catts, Natsai Chieza, Peter Fratzl, Jens Hauser, Allison Kudla, François-Joseph Lapointe, Martin Müller, Miroslav Radman, and Wolfgang Schäffner.
Session 1 – Fundamentals: issues and some historical and current practices and reflections in which we can see “life” situated at the crossroads of arts, design, and science.
Session 2 – Research and creation: exchanges among artists, designers, and scientists based on the research they have carried out, from investigations into new materials to practices with living organisms.
Session 3 – Matter for reflection: or “how to lay the foundations of a new material culture.” Four speakers (artist, philosopher, biologist, and cultural theorist) provide cross-cutting points of view from their fields.
Program
DISSECT evening: a multidisciplinary discussion, part round table and part “live” show, with contemporary works of art and design, staged in a specific scenic setting, where living matter and life are discussed.
A Vertigo Forum event organized by Ircam as part of “Mutations / Creations 3” in connection with the “Designing the Living” exhibition.
Behavioral Matter
Seminar | EnsadLab | October 4, 2018
A day of collective reflection organized by EnsadLab’s Reflective Interaction group, particularly targeting individuals working on the study of “Behavioral Objects” and “Active Matter” whose work shifted to “Behavioral Matter.” A joint research project developed with Humboldt University.
This topic also concerns related artistic and conceptual research and creations that explore biology and biotechnology, whose approaches involve non-human activities and dynamic cooperative relationships with living beings and life processes (in creation/design) of “Gestaltung” form, with the purpose of rethinking the boundaries between the world of objects, robotics, and living beings through a new understanding of our relationship to matter.
With the following speakers: Marie-Sarah Adenis, Edwige Armand, Armand Behar, Samuel Bianchini, Philippe Chiambaretta, Olivier Dauchot, Christian Duquennois, Manuelle Freire, Jens Hauser, Rahma Khazam, François-Joseph Lapointe, Anne De Malleray, Aurélie Mossé, Perig Pitrou, Patricia Ribault, and Giancarlo Rizza.
Program
Practicable
Symposium | INHA | October 10, 2017
How can we design artwork made with physical involvement by their spectators—artwork that can provoke aesthetic as well as practical experiences? Between two levels of activity that are opposite in principle (contemplation and utilization), how can we propose a third way: that of “practicable” works, made for and with the action of the public?
Based on the recent book Practicable – From Participation to Interaction in Contemporary Art (MIT Press, edited by Samuel Bianchini and Erik Verhagen), some fifteen contributors including artists, art historians and theorists cover this issue that is both historical and topical, from the birth of cybernetics to contemporary social and technical approaches.
Gatherings 1ffffff supported by La Chaire Arts & Sciences
Alien, Between Arts and Sciences
Symposium | Henri Poincaré Institute | November 19, 2019
Multidisciplinary seminar organized by the Department of Languages and Cultures of École Polytechnique and the publisher La Ville Brûle, with the support of La Chaire Arts & Sciences.
A seminar to discuss how the film “Alien” is relevant—40 after its release in France—to current concerns in space exploration, artificial intelligence, philosophy, (exo)biology, art, sexuality, and reproduction.
Speakers: Sam Azulys (NYU – Paris), Frédéric Landragin (CNRS – Lattice) Roland Lehoucq (CEA Paris -Saclay, Les Utopiales), Marika Moisseeff (CNRS – The Laboratory of Social Anthropology of the Collège de France), Christopher Robinso (École Polytechnique – LinX), Jean-Sébastien Steyer (CNRS – French National Museum of Natural History), plus a round table with Philippe Carini, Olivier Cotte, and Nicolas Fructus.
The Legacies of Ursula Le Guin: Science, Fiction and Ethics for the Anthropocene
Conference | Institut du Monde Anglophone | June 18–21, 2019
An international conference on the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, to study its literary, ecological, philosophical, socio-economic, and anthropological influences and to evaluate its potential to re-imagine the world we live in.
With the following special guests: Brian Attebery (Idaho State University, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts), Julie Phillips (Biographer of Le Guin), Isabelle Stengers (Université Libre de Bruxelles).
Conference organized by the Department of Languages and Cultures of École Polytechnique and Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, with the support of La Chaire Arts & Sciences.
Forensic Architecture: Investigative Aesthetics
Conference | École des Arts Décoratifs | May 13, 2019
Stefan Laxness and Francesco Sebregondi speak on the various investigative projects carried out by the Forensic Architecture laboratory (Goldsmiths, University of London) since 2011, using multidisciplinary research with methodologies combining architecture and media.
This conference is part of the research project “Art Makes Society: new social ecologies and hybrid forms of publication” directed at EnsadLab by Francesca Cozzolino (teacher-researcher, EnsadLab/Lesc) in partnership with Pierre-Olivier Dittmar (assistant professor at CRH-GAHOM – School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS)/ Techniques & Culture), with support from Université PSL as part of the #IRIS project “Creation, Cognition and Society” and from La Chaire Arts & Sciences.
Geometrical Thought in the Post-digital Era
Round Table | École des Arts Décoratifs | Oct. 17, 2018
On the occasion of the exhibition “Variations: the geometrical thought of Gérard Baudoin, designer and pedagogue” on Oct. 8–19, 2018 at École des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, a round-table discussion is to be held with participation by the artist Fabien Léaustic (SACRe/ EnsadLab doctoral student) and the mathematician Jean-François Colonna (École Polytechnique) on the topicality of geometric thought in the post-digital era. This round table is supported by La Chaire Arts & Sciences.
2001, A Space Odyssey
Multidisciplinary Symposium | École Polytechnique | September 27, 2018
Art and Anthropology for a Living World
Conference by Tim Ingold | École des Arts Décoratifs, Paris | March 29, 2018
Anthropologist Tim Ingold delivered the closing words to the seminar “Forms of Writing and Process of Creation” held on March 29, 2018 at EnsAD, as part of the research project “Taking sides with things: Hybrid publications on creative processes,” directed by Francesca Cozzolino (Ensadlab/ Lesc) in partnership with Pierre-Olivier Dittmar (EHESS, Techniques & Culture). A conference supported by Université PSL (IRIS project “Creation, Cognition and Society”) and La Chaire Arts & Sciences.
After Man
International Symposium | École Polytechnique | Nov. 30 to Dec. 1, 2017
Humanism and transhumanism
Organizers: Michaël Foessel and Pierre Magne
Program
photo : LABOFACTORY