**
*USEFUL FICTIONS
Symposium + Speed of Light Expedition***
Humans collect and interpret measurements to understand the world and
exercise control over chaos. We rely on mechanisms of measurement – such
as a meter, the speed of light, or a photographic record – with the
assumption that they establish a truth in which we can believe. However
as traces, proxies, and indices, measurements are fragile and prone to
manipulation and misinterpretation. Tools are almost as malleable as the
ideas they produce; the promised indexical /pars pro toto/ correlation
between measurements and their interpretations has been increasingly
exploited in pursuit of human agendas. In the context of a complex
problem, such as climate change in the Anthropocene, this relationship
has become increasingly political.
*/Useful Fictions/*is a week-long symposium and a public participatory
art project in Paris. It is a platform to embrace complex problems by
modeling radical openness to research in which tools, laboratories,
studios are shared between artists and scientists to expand concepts for
ecological thinking. /Useful Fictions/ proposes to see the calculation
of a catastrophic future not as an inevitability but as an invitation to
innovate and effect change. Bridging the divide between urgency and
agency, the project gathers a coalition of artists, designers,
humanists, and graduate students to work with globally acclaimed climate
scientists in their laboratories to build future machines and write
absurd fictions.
This project invites critique of the human-centered narrative that
dominates and defines contemporary cultural consciousness. The issues we
are faced with challenge us to reclaim knowledge creation by examining
the idea of proxy and measurements in ways that will expand
anthropocentric lenses. Through the use of both critical discourse and
practice-based research in art, design, and science, as well as case
studies in climate science and related contextual research, we will ask:
“What controls the manufacturing of our systems of belief? What stories
do we tell ourselves? Can we imagine differently?”
*Call for Graduate Fellows:*
<http://usefulfictions.ucdavis.edu/call-for-graduate-fellows.html>*
/ May 15, Submission deadline
/ June 1, Notification to applicants
/ June 15, Fellows begin working *
**
*Symposium
Monday, Sept. 9, 2019 - Friday, Sept. 13, 2019
École polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France*
*Speed of Light Expedition
Saturday, Sept. 14, 2019 and Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019
Paris, France*
*/The Useful Fictions Symposium /*will take place from Monday, Sept. 9,
2019, to Friday, Sept. 13, 2019, at École polytechnique, Institut
Polytechnique de Paris, France. Within the defined framework of Useful
Fictions, research activities will unfold in the laboratories outlined
below. These research engagements will run continuously from Monday to
Friday in conjunction with guest lectures and group discussions.
*SYMPOSIUM DAILY SCHEDULE & LABORATORY INFORMATION >*
<http://usefulfictions.ucdavis.edu/symposium.html>
*/The Speed of Light (SOL) Expedition/*brings together artists,
designers, scientists, and the public to produce work individually and
collectively as we travel the same eight kilometers of distance between
Mont Valérien in Suresnes and Montmartre defined by physicist Hippolyte
Fizeau in his significant 1879 Speed of Light experiment in Paris.
Designed with incredible precision, Fizeau’s experiment is a part of the
collective genius, a wave of breakthroughs in history that gave birth to
Einstein’s theory of relativity that introduced paradigm shifts in the
science and art of the modern world.
As an interdisciplinary research project taking place in the “city of
light," the SOL Expedition harnesses the momentum of this historical
wave of collective genius. The project invites collaborators to conduct
research, produce artwork, and design games for public participation,
stimulating inquiry and exchange as cultural production that inspires
agency. Forum sites and ateliers will be set up at cultural and arts
institutions along the journey to invite collaboration. The creative
outputs will be documented as a publication for wide dissemination.
*DETAILED EVENT INFORMATION WILL BE PUBLISHED IN JULY 2019. >*
**
**
**
**
**
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*About the Project :*
This project was initiated through a Global Affairs International
Activities Seed Grant with matching funds from the College of Letters
and Science and the Office of Research from the University of
California, Davis, and the Chaire Arts et Sciences of the École
polytechnique, École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs – PSL and
The Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso. Principal Investigator: Jiayi
Young (UC Davis), Co-Principal Investigators: Jean-Marc Chomaz (École
polytechnique), Timothy Hyde (UC Davis), and James Crutchfield (UC
Davis), Collaborators: Victoria Vesna (UCLA), David Familian (UC
Irvine), Asa Calow (Madlab, Manchester, UK). Since its conception,
additional funds have been contributed by the Chaire Arts et Sciences of
the École Polytechnique, the École nationale supérieure des Arts
Décoratifs – PSL, and the Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso. The
development of the project also received generous support from Samuel
Bianchini and Manuelle Freire of La Chaire Arts et Sciences and The
Reflective Interaction Group of EnsadLab (the research lab of the École
nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs – EnsAD, PSL University,
Paris), and David Bihanic (University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne /
EnsADLab - Reflective Interaction Group). The Speed of Light Expedition:
Tim Hyde, Jiayi Young, and Jean-Marc Chomaz.
Guest Editors and Advisors: James Housefield (UC Davis) and Jens Hauser
(Michigan State University)
Communication Manager: Julie Sauret
Student Intern: Ragnhild Ståhl-Nielsen
The */Useful Fictions Symposium/* will take place from Monday, Sept. 9,
2019, to Friday, Sept. 13, 2019, at École polytechnique, Institut
Polytechnique de Paris, France. Within the defined framework of Useful
Fictions, research activities will unfold in the laboratories outlined
below. These research engagements will run continuously from Monday to
Friday in conjunction with guest lectures and group discussions.
*SYMPOSIUM DAILY SCHEDULE:*
10 AM - Noon : Research and Lab Activities
Noon - 2 PM : Lunch
2 AM - 4 PM : Lectures / Workshops / Discussions
4 PM - 5 PM : Break
5 PM - 7 PM : Research and Lab Activities continues
7 PM : Dinner – BBQ / discussion
9 PM : Digestive
*LAB 1:CLIMATE MEASUREMENTS *at the Site Instrumental de Recherche par
Télédétection Atmosphérique (SIRTA) Observatory, Institut Pierre Simon
Laplace (IPSL) | map <https://goo.gl/maps/szMWZ5BcbqM2>
/Hosts:/
Imma Bastida (École polytechnique)
Victoria Vesna (ART | SCI Center, University of California, Los Angeles)
Alexis Tantet (LMD, École polytechnique)
More information on SIRTA Observatory (IPSL) can be found via the
website: https://www.ipsl.fr/en/.
*LAB 2: A MICROCLIMATE OF ONE* at the Laboratoire d'hydrodynamique
(LadHyX) | map <https://goo.gl/maps/ezfBbvezmEP2>
/Hosts:/
Jean-Marc Chomaz (LadHyX, École polytechnique)
Tim Hyde (Department of Art, University of California, Davis)
Stuart Dalziel (DAMTP, University of Cambridge)
with the collaboration of Laurent Karst (ENSA Dijon, Chaire arts &
sciences, Labofactory)
A collaboration between researchers in contemporary art and physics,
this lab is a participatory art installation in which synthetic
Schlieren photography is used to produce real-time photographic
portraits of participants through visualizations of the invisible
atmospheric plumes produced by the heat flux and convection of the human
body. More information on LadHyX can be found via the website:
https://www.ladhyx.polytechnique.fr/en/.
*_Keywords:_*plume, art installation, climate, photography,
visualization, atmosphere, future
*LAB 3:**4D ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING: FROM PRINT TO ANIMATION *at the
Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés (LSI) | map
<https://goo.gl/maps/j3JsjUZbZXn>
/Hosts:/
Giancarlo Rizza (LSI, École polytechnique / CEA/DRF/IRAMIS, CNRS /
DISAT, Politecnico di Torino)
James Auger (RMIT Europe / Reflective Interaction, EnsadLab)
Samuel Bianchini (Reflective Interaction, EnsadLab, École nationale
supérieure des Arts Décoratifs)
Bringing the dynamics of life into inanimate objects is the new realm of
additive manufacturing. This novel mindset is also called “4D printing”
and uses advanced materials that respond to the influence of external
stimuli or energies to program the actions of a printed object. The
objective of this workshop is to fabricate/use/experiment with
magneto-responsive soft polymers to mimic the behavior of nature. 2D
planar structures of magneticresponsive soft polymers are used to
exploit origami and kirigami folding and unfolding processes. Throughout
the workshop, participants speculate on possible near-future
applications of 4D printing: what real-life environmental changes could
be used to animate the 4D object and how might it physically react in
response?
>> More information on LSI can be found via the website:
https://portail.polytechnique.edu/lsi/en/.
*_Keywords:_* Additive manufacturing, 3D/4D printing, photo-curing,
magnetic nanoparticles
*Lab 4:DATA MATERIA *at the Fablab
/Hosts:/
David Bihanic (University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne / Reflective
Interaction, EnsadLab)
Jiayi Young (Department of Design, University of California, Davis)
Pierre Kerfriden (Mines Paris Tech)
with the collaboration of Filippo Fabbri (Université Paris Sud, Labofactory)
This workshop invites participants to consider the concept of data as an
abstract representation of our relationship to larger truths embodying
the capacity for infinite possibilities of reification. Based on
datasets, such as those from climate science and other sources, we will
create and design new narratives, fictions, and utopias/dystopias.
Together, we will imagine and materialize the creative manifestations of
data occupying indoor and outdoor physical spaces that invite the
rethinking of measurements in its relationship to the story we
construct. More information on the Fablab can be found via the website:
https://www.polytechnique.edu/en/fab-lab.
*_Keywords:_* data, representation, embody, reification,
materialization, climate, measurements, story, narrative, fiction,
utopia/dystopia
*LAB 5: Making, Engagement, and Reflexivity*
/Hosts:/
Manuelle Freire (Chaire Arts & Sciences / EnsadLab, École nationale
supérieure des Arts Décoratifs)
Aniara Rodado (Artist and Doctoral Student in Art and Science, École
Polytechnique)
Scientific "truth" is constructed in an iterative negotiation between
epistemic, methodological, and technical questions. Constructs – like
‘temperature’ as argued by Hasok Chang (2007) – are invented with the
instruments that allow different concepts to be measured. Science is, in
this sense, an arbitrary measure to assess “real” conditions. What other
possible constructs and instruments have been or are being overseen in
the histories of science and hence deprived of their own validity? What
narratives and forms of knowledge are disavowed in the authoritative
face of the Scientific Method? Into this group, we invite experts,
researchers, and story-tellers of non-mainstream and fictional histories
of science or vernacular knowledge, including of queer and feminist
theories, who are interested in integrating other groups and pointing
into unforeseen avenues of inquiry or proposing alternative, but useful,
fictional constructs and instruments.
*_Keywords:_* histories of science, speculative narrative, situated
knowledge, epistemicide, ecological crisis
--
Julie Sauret
Chargée de communication, production et médiation / Communication Manager
La Chaire arts & sciences de l'École polytechnique,
de l'École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs-PSL
et de la Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso
tél: +33(0)6.65.63.65.96
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