Ambivalences #3 – Political Mutations
Chapter 1 - Hacktivisms
Free
Public meetings for a reflection dedicated to the relationship between art, technology and society
Starting from the premise that technology is not neutral, that its exponential deployment impacts our entire ecosystem, and that the place of art and culture is essential to explore these questions and issues, Electroni[k], Oblique/s and Stereolux join forces to present a program of meetings entitled Ambivalences.
After a first year dedicated to the theme of “Environmental mutations” and a second to “Mutations of the living“, the next edition of the conferences during the festival Maintenant is dedicated to the first chapter of the theme “Political mutations“.
▶︎ Chapter 1 – Hacktivisms
AS PART OF THE PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS OF THE FESTIVAL MAINTENANT
The progressive digitalization of our societies is generating profound transformations in many aspects of our lives: access to information, knowledge, culture, changes in social and economic relations… How do these mutations modify the power relations in the social field? What are the political implications? How do today’s artists look at these changes and how do they use these technologies in their work to make a political statement and reveal their emancipating, alienating or subversive dimension?
Digital disobedience as a lever for political action?
In opening this new theme, we will question the relationship between art and activism by showing artists who are “hacking” and who invite us to rethink through art our dependence on technology and our machine ecosystem.
▶︎ Speakers
▸ PAULINE BRIAND – JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR
Pauline Briand is a journalist and author specialized in environmental issues. For Billebaude, Usbek & Rica or the National Museum of Natural History, she has written about myxomatosis, forests and climate change, the disappearance of insects, the evolution of life, and anthropology beyond humans. With Astrid de la Chapelle, Disnovation, the Internet of Dead Things Institute and Nicolas Nova, she participates in projects between art and research that work on the narrative of Easter Island to the hybridizations of the Anthropocene. Pauline Briand contributes to the Center for Earth Policies.
▸ JEAN-PAUL FOURMENTRAUX – SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGIST & ART CRITIC
Jean-Paul Fourmentraux, socio-anthropologist and art critic, is a professor at the University of Aix-Marseille and a member of the Norbert Elias Center at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. He is the author of several books on digital (counter-)cultures, including Art and the Internet (2005), L’Ère Post-media (2012), L’œuvre Virale (2013), Identités numériques (2015). For these Ambivalences meetings, he will present the works compiled in his latest book antiDATA – La désobéissance numérique (Les Presses Du Réel, 2020).
▸ GWENOLA WAGON – ARTIST AND LECTURER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 8
Gwenola Wagon is an artist and teacher at the University of Paris 8. Her work imagines alternatives and paradoxical narratives to deconstruct the contemporary digital world. She makes films and installations for festivals and exhibitions in France and abroad. She published Psychoanalysis of the international airport with Stéphane Degoutin and Planète B at 369.
▸ CHRISTOPHE BRUNO – ARTISTE PLASTICIEN
In the early 2000s, Christophe Bruno invested the net.art movement by hijacking Google Adwords, Google‘s advertising network, in a poetic and sensitive way. The polymorphous visual artist now ventures into many mediums, from sculpture to NFT and performance, to propose a critical reflection on network phenomena in the fields of image and language.
Artist-in-residence at IMéRA, Institute of Advanced Studies of Aix-Marseille University, “Art, Science, Society” program and winner of the “Résidence Hors les Murs Villa Médicis 2016” program of the French Institute, “Digital Arts” category, he has been involved since 2013 in the Improbable workshops, the Art Thinking workshops of the Jean-Baptiste Say Institute, and lectures at the Collège de France and at Stanford University.
▸ JULIE MOREL – ARTIST AND TEACHER at ESAD TALM-TOURS
Julie Morel is an artist. She has participated in numerous collectives (incident.net, Kom.post, Le sans titre). Her plastic and graphic proposals, often linked to the history of conceptual art, are directed towards textuality: the different aspects of written text. Her practice, fueled by a desire to question the relationship between man and language, develops in various forms: editions, interactive devices, websites, installations, drawings, collaborative workshops. She explores different fields of writing: literature, translation, computer code, metalanguage, commentary, score. Her work is exhibited in France and internationally. She teaches editorial and digital practices at ESAD Tours.
▶︎ In pictures
Ambivalences is based on the festivals Maintenant in Rennes, Scopitone with the Labo Arts & Tech in Nantes and ]interstice[ in Caen. It emanates from an inter-regional dynamic carried by Electroni[k] (Brittany), Stereolux (Pays de La Loire) and Oblique/s (Normandy). It is part of the reflections carried out by the national network HACNUM, around the issues specific to the actors and the sector of hybrid arts and digital cultures.
In partnership with the University of Rennes 2.
Accessibility
Blind and visually impaired Disabled Mental or psychic disorders Reduced functional capacities
Artists linked
Pauline Briand
France
Pauline Briand is a writer and journalist specialized in environmental issues.
Jean-Paul Fourmentraux
France
Jean-Paul Fourmentraux, socio-anthropologist and art critic, is a professor at the University of Aix-Marseille and a member of the Norbert Elias Center at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. He is the author of several books on digital (counter)cultures, including Art and the Internet (2005), L’Ère Post-media (2012), L’œuvre Virale (2013), and Identités numériques (2015).
For these Ambivalences meetings, he will present the works compiled in his latest book antiDATA – La désobéissance numérique (Les Presses Du Réel, 2020).
Christophe Bruno
France
Christophe Bruno is a visual artist from the net.art movement. In his practice, he proposes a critical reflection of the phenomena of network in the fields of the image and the language.
Gwenola Wagon
France
Gwenola Wagon is an artist and teacher at the University of Paris 8. Her work imagines alternatives and paradoxical narratives to deconstruct the contemporary digital world.
Julie Morel
France
Julie Morel is an artist. She has participated in numerous collectives (incident.net, Kom.post, Le sans titre). Her plastic and graphic proposals, often linked to the history of conceptual art, are directed towards textuality: the different aspects of written text.