The present proposition aims to present the goals and methodologies of a research-creation experimentation, currently running under our supervision, within the Rhône-Alpes Complex System Institute (IXXI), at ENS Lyon. IXXI consists of trans-university structure designed to promote interdisciplinary sciences (Abry et al. 2015).
The overarching goal of the designed research-creation experimentation is to create a form of “Lab.-experimentation” that permits to observe and study interdisciplinary works in progress. Research-creation between artists and scientists is thus envisaged here as a paradigmatic tool for exploring interdisciplinary research interactions, in their most extreme instance.
Methodologically, a call for participation was launched, early spring 2023, to a workshop gathering researchers and artists, with instructions to prepare a few minute self-introduction, addressing the question: why as an artist (respectively, a researcher) am I interested to discuss with scientists (respectively artists) ? Five artists were specifically invited, representing several very different forms of arts (danse, sculpture, drawing/painting, photography, poetry, singing) and above 40 researchers spontaneously registered covering a wide variety of scientific fields both from Humanity and Social Sciences, Medicine and Exact or Experimental Sciences. Master students in Philosophy of Sciences were also involved as “observers” in charge of collecting data and material to study interdisciplinary creation processes.
From the initial workshop round-table discussions emerged a number of cross-disciplinary themes of interest to both artists and scientists: precision/uncertainty/confidence; movement/dynamics (rhythms, absence of rhythms, randomness, repetition, mutation, continuity, rupture), in breath, music, danse, body, and in models from numerous scientific fields different in nature; incarnation of arts or sciences (sensuality/sensations, pain, emotions), learning and IA (benefits for the society threat, novelty, history). This lead to the spectacular self-constitution of groups of artists and scientists willing to jointly “elaborate” on these research themes.
Preliminary analysis of on-going observations (video and audio recordings of group discussions and artistic experimentations) from several work sessions by these different groups lead us to envision that creation in arts and sciences are fueled by common motivations, ranging from emotional involvements to ontological questions, from communication issues to leaving a comfort (disciplinary) zone, all entailing relevant connections to interdisciplinary research mechanisms. Amongst them, the use of polysemic and even ambiguous terms, entangling technical and commonsense meanings, is observed to be both a source of difficulty in interdisciplinary researches and, surprisingly, a motor for innovation.
The significant interest raised by the project amongst both scientists and artists lead us to schedule a closing workshop in november 2024. It will feature feedback on the process by artists and scientists, obviously comprising the unveiling of the creations/performances.
In our proposal to the present session of CIHA 2024 we will focus our attention on the role of materiality as a mediator of the intellectual exchanges between scientists and artists and as a facilitator to the construction of a shared experience (Franceschelli 2017; Ingold 2013; Ribault 2023). In particular we will highlight how the mediation through the materiality involved in artistic practices allows quite surprisingly to shed light on tacit different mental representations among the involved scientists.
Abry, P., Roux, S. G., Wendt, H., Messier, P., Klein, A. G., Tremblay, N., & Daffner, L. A. (2015). Multiscale anisotropic texture analysis and classification of photographic prints: Art scholarship meets image processing algorithms. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 32(4), 18-27.
Franceschelli S., (2017). "Morphogenesis and design. Thinking through analogs". In Terranova Ch., Tromble M. (eds.). Routledge Companion of Biology in Art and Architecture, Routledge, 2018-235.
Ingold T. (2013). Making : Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, and Architecture. Routledge
Ribault P. (2023). Design. gestaltung. Formativité. Philosophies of making. Birkhauser
Patrice Abry (perso.ens-lyon.fr/patrice.abry) is CNRS Research Director at the Physics Lab., ENS Lyon, expert in theoretical statistical analysis of scale invariance and fractal dynamics, with real world applications, related to societal stakes (Covid19 monitoring, neurosciences, art investigations). Since 2020, he serves as IXXI director where he tries to push forward interdisciplinary research experimentations.
Sara Franceschelli (perso.ens-lyon.fr/sara.franceschelli) is an associate professor of philosophy of science at the ENS de Lyon, IHRIM. Specialised in the epistemology of deterministic chaos and dynamical systems, she currently works on morphogenesis, on analogy, and on art-science research-creation.
The aim of our proposal is to present the objectives and methodologies of a research-creation experiment, currently being conducted under our supervision, at the Institut des Systèmes Complexes Rhône-Alpes (IXXI), at ENS Lyon. We will study the role of materiality as a mediator of intellectual exchanges between scientists and artists and as a facilitator of the construction of a shared experience (Franceschelli 2017; Ingold 2013; Ribault 2023). In particular, we will highlight how mediation by materiality involved in artistic practices rather surprisingly brings to light different tacit mental representations among the scientists involved.