La DEMO peut accompagner toutes les phases d’une création : conception, élaboration, diffusion en tant qu’exploration localisée sur le potentiel d’une hypothèse. Similaire à la notion de maquette, de storyboard ou d’étude, son rôle permet de visualiser et de valoriser des processus.
Modération : Gisèle Trudel
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AGNI – an iterative methodology for research-creation
In 2005, in response to a perceived lack of methodical rigor in practices of research-creation, I developed the iterative AGNI research-creation methodology, loosely based on the RSVP Cycle Theory of Collective Creativity outlined by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin in the late 1960s. In his model, Halprin developed effective methods to integrate both the creator’s and the “recipient’s/user’s” perception of a work of public art. These methods, slightly adapted, are extremely useful for integrating both the researcher’s (i.e. the “creators” of the analysis) and the artist’s/art form’s points of view into a coherent perspective. AGNI (the name is an acronym, but it also is the name of the deity of fire in Hindu thought) consists of four steps that form an iterative cycle: “Analysis”, “Grammar”, “Notation” and “Implementation” – the last step forming once more the material for “Analysis”, thus creating an iterative methodology. In my presentation, I will discuss the ideas and concepts behind this methodology, the problems it is supposed to solve as well as the problems it generates. I will discuss examples of research-creation projects using AGNI since 2005, both my own and projects by others. Finally, I will speak about the idea of the demo and how it relates to the concept of “Implementation” in AGNI – and how the concept of the demo itself is already transforming the aesthetic and social role of artists and their art.
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Killer apps – dead media – live art?
The academic ‘‘public or perish’’ ultimatum is increasingly replaced by Negroponte’s 1990s ‘‘demo or die’’ mantra in creative research/research-creation, manifest in such techniques as iterative design, rapid prototyping, and agile software development. These proving-by-doing techniques may value epistemic action (Kirsh and Maglio), allowing us to reframe research questions, over pragmatic action, whereby we seek to tackle specific physical problems. At the same time, these techniques can be harnessed to fast evolving market imperatives: the killer apps battle zone is strewn with corpses of dead and obsolete media. I propose to focus on how we might reconcile the demo’s interactional, compellingly performance – rather than presentation – oriented qualities (Lunenfeld), with the critical rhetorical and historical awareness of reflexive live art practices.
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Les méthodologies du Libre et de la Culture Libre et leurs applications dans la recherche et la gouvernance : une communication en mode de proposition
Partant d’une analyse de la Licence Publique Générale (GPL) et de la Licence Publique Générale Limitée (LGPL) qui déterminent les droits de reproduction des Logiciels Libres (FLOSS), la conférence présentera comment ces principes légaux ont conduit à la création de communautés de collaborateurs autour de projets précis, allant de logiciels soutenant le réseau (comme Apache, le logiciel de serveur le plus utilisé) à la création participative de logiciels 3D et d’environnements de programmation visuels pour la manipulation du son et de la vidéo en temps réel. Une définition des termes comme « hack », « maker culture » et « release » permettront de saisir la mécanique de l’innovation et du partage inhérente à ce mouvement. Quelques cas tirés d’expériences de recherche du chercheur situeront les approches de développement les plus productives.
Les éléments de définition du Libre : transparence, collégialité, partage, reconnaissance du mérite et participation collective, sont des principes opératifs du Logiciel Libre qui se manifestent ailleurs que dans le champ étroit du développement de logiciel ou de matériel. La « Culture Libre » regroupe des types de pratiques parfois éloignées du fait technologique. Des organisations comme des FabLabs, Hackerspaces, centres d’artistes ou festivals mettent en application ces principes dans leurs créations et la gouvernance de leurs organisations. Quelques exemples choisis serviront de modèles d’application de ces méthodologies et de base à une proposition de leur application dans la recherche et les centres de recherche.
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Promiscuous Infrastructures
The exhibition/project Promiscuous Infrastructures: Phase II, which took place at Centre des arts actuels Skol in Montreal, March/April 2012, aimed to visualise/materialise Artivistic’s research practice at the intersection of art, activism and theory. Occurring within the context of the student strike, the exhibition/project moved beyond the delineations of the institutional, directly engaging with and reflecting on the movement, coalescing in the editing of an issue of FUSE Magazine in December 2012.
Building on PI2, this presentation engages in a broader discussion of alternative models of research-creation and self-organising, from outside the academy or institutional practice of art. It aims to present a narrative that explores the roles of affect (but not necessarily “affect theory”) and network models (but not necessarily rhizomatic ones) in grassroots community building reflected through personal practice.
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An Archive of Process
This presentation will describe work done at the Archinodes Research Design Lab (archinodes.com). In particular, this talk will cover Archinodes’ latest project: a process-oriented archival application for collectors. While currently under development, this ideal archive design provides users a toolset allowing them to collect and index their digital materials while rendering visible the traces of process as they and others engage with their collections. The app allows users to create themed as well as time/space-based collections of archived material, while also maintaining granular control over the privacy of their content. The process-oriented approach includes the collection of digital materials as well as the traces of engagement with the varied materials across collections. This project builds off of a (re)vision of the archive, and as such draws from theoretical interventions on the subject, which informs and shapes the grid of possibilities of this app. By exposing the design process, this presentation is an open reflection on the various trajectories between design thinking and doing.