SYMPOSIUM
Supervitesse et wikimémoire
De l’accélération des consciences à la mise en réseau d’une mémoire fragmentée
February 14th and 15th – 9 h to 17 h / salle Multi
Information / reservation : (418) 522-8918, poste 2 or avatar@meduse.org
www.lenomdelachose.org/colloque/supervitesse
PRESENTATION SCHEDULE TALKS LECTURERS
PRESENTATION
If one had to define what is specific to what are called the «new technologies», consisting mainly of various data processing applications, one would predictably speak of speed and memory.
Actually, according to the literature, they would be two faces of the same coin: speed and memory are closely connected, but opposite. The two have long been thought of as two poles between which the human experiment moves. Says critic Nancy Baric:
“No matter what is said of the past and the present, and of the tools available to the media, time will always move at the same speed and it is our perception which changes.”
Nancy Baric – Les medias et la vitesse de l’histoire, May 2003
Speeds, Memories
So there would then be several types of speeds and memories. With regard to memory, many ranges already exist: collective memory, live memory, memory of places, long term memory, and even – from a recent article on the topic of media - the commercial memory. Much in the same way that the observed variations of the five senses has increased over past years (the sense of touch, for instance, has become the sense of hot-cold, smooth-rough, sharp-round, etc), speed and memory are expressed today in many different ways that we will attempt to more closely examine.
The media itself, the electronic holders of knowledge and culture, transform our relationship to the said culture. From the end of the XIXE century we have observed the passing of cultural time through the new media objects that were cinema, phonography, videography, etc. However, these media objects are coming to an end in an information network whose physical reality is called in question. It is, strictly speaking, a revolution: the disappearance of the role of the object in a cultural consolidation. Or, could one say that the network can be perceived as a super-object?
SCHEDULE
Thursday, February 14
9 h 30 : Introduction
9 h 45 : Presentation by Jocelyn Robert
10 h : Talk by Fabrice Montal
11 h : Talk by Jean Cristofol
13 h 45 : Presentation by moderator
14 h : Talk by François Parra
15 h : Talk by Suzanne Leblanc
16 h 30 : Wrap-up
Friday, February 15
9 h 30 : Review/summary of previous day
10 h : Talk by Alexandre Guay
11 h : Talk by Julien Maire
13 h 45 : Plenary discussion
15 h 30 : Opening of café-bistro
An Avatar’s presentation
En collaboration avec
TALKS
“Network, Body, Memory” by François Parra
This conference will center on the presentation of a project by Francois Parra, entitled « autotune.tk », and on the evolution of the challenges that are drawn from it. autotune.tk is a software that composes its own pieces by delving into a database of pop(ular) songs, performed or recorded by you and I. A discussion ensues on the collective dimension of the work, on its space in time, of the decontextualization of the user’s participation, and additionally, on the creation of an independent soundtrack « creature. »
“The Red Queen Theory” by Jean Cristofol
This talk will expand on three questions that interlace. The first is based on a principle that rejects the notion of real time as the expression of the mere result of the acceleration of the mechanical computing time. The second deals with the network as a « form » in which time and space are spread in complex multidimensionality. The third transfers this analysis of forms by comparing it to the structures of the classical « art of memory. » Thus, the « game » consists in finding ways as to how these three concepts are joined together: it’s all about making a braid using these three strands.
“Pulse Width Modulation” by Julien Maire
What is the relation between speed, frequency, and the projection of an image in movement? How do new media reinvent stillness? Through some of his works, starting from excerpts of the conference-performance « L’image électrique » (2003) and based on the publication « Rafraîchir l’écran » (2005), the speaker will take you on an exploration of audio-visual techniques and of the relationship between speed and movement.
“Memory and the Shutter Device” by Fabrice Montal
The text that will follow will not truly match what you will be hearing. Or rather, it will not correspond in time, neither in space. Truism. It will be a reproduction of what? From a thought that originated here and now to contemplate upon the relationship between cinema and forgetting, between memory and the expansion of the mediums of its expression. Somewhere there will be an attempt to see cinema as a vehicle of its own disappearance. The focus will be on images, on duration, on techniques, and on redemption.
“Meteorologie” by Suzanne Leblanc
The proliferation of information and most particularly of knowledge has distinctly and regularly been noted since WWII. It is one of the fundamental motives for the creation of computers as well as their adoption within the framework of the cybernetic paradigm. The recent evolution of the interactive Web, where wikis are typical, moves beyond our control and beyond interaction, toward a concept of nonlinear dynamic processes that also describe meteorological and climatic phenomena.
“The Difficult Articulation between Speed and Memory : The Case of the ATLAS Detector - Large Hadron Collider” by Alexandre Guay
Based on the research of the future LHC, the greatest particle accelerator in the world, this discussion will introduce the broad lines of the data selection system of the Atlas Detector, whose role is to extract useful statistics from the billion collisions per second generated by the accelerator. If all the data were stored, it would equal 100 000 Cds per second, or the flow produced by 50 billion simultaneous telephone conversations.
LECTURERS
François Parra (France)
The artist François Parra is a professor of digital audio at the École des Beaux-Arts d’Aix en Provence. He mostly devotes his work to the area of live performance, radio, and video. A trained visual artist, he also studied digital audio techniques at the GMEM studios in Marseille. His key artistic works involve the relationship between sound and space. Francois Parra is a member of a number of artist collectives such as Daisychain, NøDJ/NøVJ, and Cap15.
Jean Cristofol (France)
Jean Cristofol concurrently studied both law and philosophy. He started as a writer, often collaborative and in relation to cinema for the most part, which led him to develop a concept of thought founded on the question of time and impermanence. Professor at the École supérieure d’Art d’Aix en Provence, his research has over the last years led him to investigate the art of painting as well as other artistic medium using new technologies.
Julien Maire (France)
A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts de Metz, in France, Julien Maire has lived and worked in Berlin since 2004. An artist and a performer, he dismantles and reinvents the audio-visual techniques. His recent works have been presented at the Ars Electronica 07 festival where he received two honorary mentions in the categories of Hybrid Art and Interactive Art.
Fabrice Montal (Canada)
Fabrice Montal received university mistraining in history and cinema. He has been program director for Antitube since 1996; a Center which schedules cinema and video events throughout the city of Quebec. Since 2000, he is also a program director of the Festival de cinema des 3 Ameriques. A musician, a composer, and an improviser, he occasionally writes reviews on visual and media arts. He will be considering dying without a specific project.
Suzanne Leblanc (Canada)
Suzanne Leblanc has been a professor at l’École des arts visuels of Laval University since 2003. After earning a Ph.D. and postdoctoral training in the field of the philosophy of language, she won a master’s degree in visual arts from l’UQÀM and a second Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Corcordia University (2004). She is a member of the collective CECRI and has been a contributor to collective publications in France, Germany, and Quebec, in the area of the philosophy of art and the media.
Alexandre Guay (Canada)
After two years of postdoctoral internship at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, Alexandre Guay is currently pursing postdoctoral studies at the Canada Research Chair in history and the sociology of science. His research has most often focused on questions bordering physics and philosophy and more particularly on the status of symmetries and on the philosophical consequences of their use by the scientific community.
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