A PLASTIC EXPLORATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC INFRAVISIBLE: DUCHAMP AND NANOART
Giancarlo RIZZA is a physicist and Director of Research at the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) at the École Polytechnique. He holds a PhD in material sciences from the Université Paris-Sud (Paris-Saclay), and initially specialized in ion-matter interaction processes. As such, he was a member of the steering committee of the international conference Radiation Effects in Insulators (REI) and of the Groupement de Recherche (GdR) NACRE (Nanocrystals in dielectrics for electronics and optics). He also collaborated with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Subsequently, he founded and directed the Electron Microscopy Center at the École Polytechnique (Cimex), where he piloted the Nan’eau strategic project for the Université Paris-Saclay, aimed at creating a multi-correlative microscopy platform combining electronics, optics and X-rays. His current research focuses on 4D printing of intelligent nanocomposite resins. He was also a member of the steering committee for the Arts & Sciences Chair (École polytechnique, École des Arts Décoratifs, PSL and Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso) and the Useful Fictions summer school. For several years, he has been committed to strengthening and renewing the links between science and society. Aware of the importance of making science accessible and understandable to as many people as possible, it develops original formats combining public engagement and educational innovation. These initiatives aim to break down the barriers of scientific research, stimulate dialogue with diverse audiences and encourage a better understanding of contemporary scientific issues. As part of these art&science initiatives, he is also exploring the interactions between nanotechnology and art. This transdisciplinary approach, where science meets artistic creativity, enables him to reveal the transdisciplinary dimensions – aesthetic, social and philosophical – of cutting-edge technologies. Manon ABT is a PhD student in the Department of Art History at UCL (University College London), studying the preservation of early computer artworks (1960-1991). Her research offers a comparative analysis of the restoration-conservation strategies developed by museums, university research groups and artists to restore and exhibit computer artworks. She examines how these strategies question the principles of restoration-conservation through case studies located in the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Japan. Prior to her PhD, Manon worked on the links between nanotechnology, art and the infra-perceptible with Giancarlo Rizza, as part of the Arts and Sciences Chair at École Polytechnique, EnsAD-PSL and the Fondation Carasso. This article explores how scientific discoveries of an imperceptible reality inspired Marcel Duchamp to question the plasticity of matter beyond our senses—dust. At the intersection of art, literature, and science, this story unfolds in the early 20th century, a time of reevaluating our perception of reality. Linking scientific advances, such as X-rays, electrons, and atomic theory, with avant-garde artistic movements, Duchamp transitioned from retinal art, tied to taste, to conceptual art, which he called « art of the gray matter. » Through an analysis of The Large Glass and the photograph Dust Breeding (created with Man Ray), the article highlights how Duchamp used dust as a plastic material to bridge scientific imperceptibility with his concept of the « infrathin, » pushing the boundaries of perception. This artistic approach anticipates what would later be known as « nanoart ».
BETWEEN ABSENCE AND PRESENCE: THE CONVERGENCE OF AI, SENSING TECHNOLOGIES, AND ART
Laura CINTI is a research-based artist working within the intersections of art, science and technology. She is currently leading a project using drone technology and artificial intelligence to search for a female counterpart of an extremely rare male cycad on the verge of extinction. Laura’s artworks have been exhibited and presented internationally. She’s a Research Fellow at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton and part of the art collective C-LAB in London. She is known for using plant biology as a medium, examining the ethical, philosophical, and ecological implications of human interaction with nature. Laura is a co-founder of C-LAB, an art-science research collective, where she collaborates on projects that merge scientific inquiry with artistic experimentation, particularly focusing on plant life, ecology, and biotechnology. Her work challenges viewers to rethink the relationships between humans, technology, and the natural world. The AI in the Sky project presented in PLASTIR uses artificial intelligence and remote sensing technologies to search for a partner for a rare cycad species classified as ‘extinct in the wild’ and known as Encephalartos woodii. A single male specimen was discovered in South Africa’s Ngoye Forest where it was removed, and it has since been propagated in botanical gardens as clones of the original with all existing specimens being male. While no female has been documented, this dense forest contains many unexplored pockets harboring the possibility of one hiding amongst the canopies. Utilizing drones, imaging sensors, and AI, this project attempts to overcome limitations of traditional foot surveys through mapping the forest in order to capture hidden features and automate the search process. The project’s search for the female aims to highlight the plight of these ancient plants, explore new conservation methods using technologies such as AI and remote sensing as novel ways of seeing and searching, and to address the broader implications of these technologies when intertwined with art and, by extension, ecology.
SENSORY MEMORY BODIES FOR CREATION: COLLECTING, PERFORMING
Marisella PACHECO is a sensory designer specializing in the creation of innovative digital experiences. Currently a doctoral student at Toulouse-Jean Jaurès University, Marisella is working on a thesis in the LLA-CREATIS laboratory entitled ‘Design d’expérience, l’expérience du design et l’émergence d’un patrimoine sensoriel numérique’, incorporating performance art techniques to rethink the profession of digital experience designer. Founder of the start-up Munity, she develops personalised solutions tailored to users’ sensory imaginations, transforming physical processes into intuitive digital experiences. At the same time, she is exploring culinary design, highlighting ritual practices and ancestral traditions. She collaborates with Delphine TALBOT on KatchaKatcha, an international project that raises participants’ awareness of their sensations and redefines cultural elements through the creation of international performances. Delphine Talbot is a lecturer in Visual Arts and Design, a permanent member of the LLA CREATIS laboratory, and co-director of the ‘Creation Research Innovation in Colour’ and ‘Sensory Design’ master’s at the University of Toulouse 2. Her research focuses on notions of situated design, chromatic territories and ethno-poetics, involving the foundations of the anthropology of the sensory and material cultures. His research and creative activities fall under two main headings: ‘practices and theories of color’, involving field studies (mainly in Japan) and knowledge of dyeing techniques, and ‘materials and materiality’, involving the exploration and conceptualization of a multi-sensory dimension relating to effects and uses. The creation of culinary design performances (KatchaKatcha) and immersive experiences, as well as the intercultural dimension, combine to form the strong points of her artistic practice. Her most recent work focuses on the issue of care design, involving tinctorial and medicinal plants. The work presented here was produced as part of a research-creation approach combining tools derived from ethnography and a practice of situated design, with the KatchaKatcha culinary design performances updating the collective memories of a territory through the creation of immersive and participatory sensory experiences. Culinary traditions are reinvented, blended and even transgressed, creating liminal spaces conducive to the meaningful reappropriation of habitus and the stimulation of spectators’ imaginations. The notion of the body as memory is central, involving materials from the field as living archives, precursors of memory reconnection and the transformation of cultural reference points. Unlike traditional happenings, KatchaKatcha actively engages local people as co-creators, encouraging a collective re-appropriation of sensory heritage and the creation of a heritage that is enhanced by the act of performance involving gestures, materials and recipes collected in situ. This interdisciplinary approach offers spaces for sensitive interaction between memory, imagination, and creation. The project thus affirms the essential role of the sensory and the imaginary in cultural and social innovation practices.
Former program director at the Collège International de Philosophie (2013-2019), Carlos LOBO has been teaching in CPGE since 1998. Associated with the Husserl Archives (ENS) and the Gilles Gaston Granger Center (Aix-Marseille), he is co-founder of the Center for Research in Epistemology, Logical Analysis and Phenomenology, whose journal, Intentio, created in 2019, he directs. His research is part of the perspective of an update of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology, which involves the reconstruction and extension of dialogues and transactions, often implicit but sometimes explicit, of figures of epistemology, philosophy of science, mathematics or logic (Weyl, Hausdorff, Peirce, Bachelard, Rota, Châtelet, Desanti, Thom, Gil, Girard, etc.). He translated H. Weyl, Philosophie des mathématiques et des sciences de la nature, MétisPresses, Geneva, 2018; published with J. Bernard, Weyl and the Problem of Space, From Science to Philosophy, Springer, 2019 and with L. Boi, When Form becomes Substance: Diagrams, Power of Gesture and Phenomenology of Space, Birkhäuser/Springer, 2022. Phenomenology has also fertilized, in parallel modalities, the most innovative investigations of the twentieth century in the field of ethics, value theory, deontics or law, but also aesthetics. Related to this line of research are the publications: “Relativity of Taste without Relativism. An Introduction to Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience”, Miscellanea, Antropologica & Sociologica, 2018, Volume, 20, Warsaw; “From Epistemological Mannerism to Aesthetic Mannerism. Some proposals and examples for a phenomenological exploration of the artistic play space », La Part de l’œil, Dossier: Exhibition / Space / Frame, No. 33/34, 2020. « The problem of morphogenesis in Thom at the crossroads of transcendental phenomenology and catastrophe theory », Aesthetics of the alive, René Thom, La Part de l’Œil, No. 38, 2024, p. 185-199 that we have commented on the website PSA/Publications.. As announced, this article is the second part of Carlos Lobo’s article published in Plastir N°74 (see summary). As announced, this article is the second part of Carlos Lobo’s article published in Plastir N°74 (see summary). In particular, it extends his in-depth study of the crisis of the aesthetic sciences and the phenomenology of aesthetic reason by considering the work of art as an object in its ‘manners’ and Riemann surface.