esad_orleans_expo Search Bar # – An ECOLAB exhibition

At the root of some radical technologies, there is not only a practical application but also wider-ranging fantasies and powerful ideologies. This is the case with bitcoin cryptocurrency, whose founding white paper was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto and published, at the height of global financial crisis, on Halloween night, the 31 October 2008. This P2P, decentralized currency, born in a context of generalized defiance, would allow to overstep states and banks.

The workshop tackles the mapping of different ideological and political movements – at times contradictory – and their offshoots, which underlie the creation of this digital currency and the blockchain, the architecture which supports it. Movements cross paths, like cypherpunks, who speak out against intrusive governments; libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who anticipate an imminent collapse of the state for the benefit of a spontaneous order of the market; or even the Extropians, who thought they could unleash innovation and live eternally thanks to this currency.

Workshop with Cyril Makhoul 

So that the processes of calculation and archiving don’t remain in a black box inaccessible to human understanding, it may be appropriate to make them visible thanks to graphic tools. Starting from the idea of the research programme on blockchain indexed on tides, this workshop has been the opportunity to conceive variable fonts, and to link them to real-time data collected on tidal variations near Saint-Nazaire. These dynamic forms have been held up against different information and data from blockchains such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, to offer images of their technological activity over a given period or in real-time. The workshop 

has also been the opportunity to question the ornamental potential of ciphered codes, like the medieval Cistercian numerical notation system which inspired many of the graphic paths presented.

Cyril Makhoul is an independent designer.

Workshop with Grégoire Lauvin.

As cryptocurrencies gain popularity, the energy impact of bitcoin is regularly questioned. Security and immutability of transactions are guaranteed by “Proof of Work”; this takes the form of a denominate cryptographic competition called “mining”. This operation which draws on high performance computing consumes large amounts of electricity. It is done by “miners” who compete to validate blocks. The creation of each block leads to the release of a fixed number of bitcoins which reward the miners. To “mine” the bitcoins, i.e. generate new coins, it is necessary to use energy.

Grégoire Lauvin has designed and undertaken to build a machine, Puissance, which recovers the heat produced by a computer mining bitcoins. This heat, a by-product of the process, is transformed into movement by a Stirling engine, and actions a musique box playing The Internationale, “the workers’ hymn”, echoing the utopia of the appropriation of means of producing money by the people.

During this workshop, participants are invited to imagine various forms of machines emphasing this energy consumption, following the prototype developed by the artist.

Grégoire Lauvin is an artist.

Integrally conceived by the 2021 research programme, the several times exhibited Blockchain Genesis, is installed so as to serve as an archive and at the same time, an experimental tool for some projects.

The specificity of Blockchain Genesis resides in indexing it on an alternative time unit: the cycle of tides determined by the Earth’s rotation, and the attraction of the Sun and the Moon. Tide predictions with harmonic constants have also been updated for this exhibition.

Justine Coirier, Mathilde Goncalves, Estelle Hericher, Amélie Squivée, Nicolas Tilly, Ella Tudoret, Enola Viry

There is only a short step from the mapping cherished by Borges to the art of our familiar game cards.This project aims to question a deck of cards as a transitional object between graphic creation and the implementation of new play and narrative concepts. It explores the hybrid potentials of the printed object and the screen, which are put into perspective through the imaginary of cards. The elaboration of new rules, the narrative built by the player and the graphic re-interpretation of popular games are part of the research axes developed through four different proposals. It is as much about imagining processes of interaction between digital and print (elaboration of rules), and creating new visual and graphic worlds, as about quitting the screen to manipulate forms and objects. The players are therefore invited to create their own story through the unlimited combination of the cards, or to start a collection of NFT cards (Non Fongible Token, digital tokens which allow to sell digital work over the internet) …  

Leslie Astier, Adrien Bisecco, Maguelone Faivre d’Arcier, Lou-Ann Pigearias, Pauline Stein

Oxyde de fer/ Iron-oxide is a mixed- reality, contemplative board game which proposes to roam a fictional world in a playful way. Composed of hexagonal pieces, this boardgame is played like dominoes. The players will assemble the pieces to reveal a territory which evokes a cyberspace world. As the assembly appears, QR codes, scanned with a smartphone, invite players to discover narrative fragments inspired by the world of cyborgs.

These narrative and poetic proposals, in their own way explore contemporary societal challenges through fictions spun by more than one.
Iron-oxide can be played by one or more players, the number of which determines the speed of the game. The objective is to create a meandering and bring the player to become aware of the challenges in A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway. The game ends when it is no longer possible to add pieces without jeopardizing the harmony of the board.

Jessy Asselineau, Clément Bournas, Tatiana Chatellier, Yoan Lapègue, Avoko Rakotoarivony

Monoliths is a construction game inspired by the form of the Atlantic Wall casemates.

It is composed of different blocks to assemble to reconstruct one of these buildings.

Pursuing the Paul Virilio’s archeology of bunkers, this project explores the history of these remains, fragments of landscapes which are both playing areas and memorial sites today. As the year goes by, these structures are eroded, displaced and returned towards the ocean, passing from impressive architectures to singular figures punctuating the relief of the French coasts. This metamorphosis and weathering by the effects of time and tide are depicted here. The game is composed of different concrete monoliths which players can assemble, again and again, in order to find the initial shape of the building. Unveiling the story depends on the manipulation of these blocks. It proposes to travel in these fractured spaces via augmented reality.

Reading the landscape has given rise to a workshop led by Clémence Mathieu. Surveying and observation were carried out at the scale of the study perimeter, from the centre of the conurbation to the western limit of the natural reserve, from the secondary to the primary river bed. The map, true to the scale 1/10 000 (1cm=100m), highlights the landscape topography and lines of force: hillsides, urban areas, islands, levees of the Loire, agricultural alluvial plains, the confluence of the Loiret and the Loire, infrastructures such as bridges, power lines … Indeed, this shows the interactions between the environment and human activity. This map is enriched with illustrations of sections of the perimeter, which give details of the coexistences of an other mode. Drawing on the IGN map, a series of unfolded maps at a scale of 1/1000 (1cm=10m) presents a portion of the perimeter adjacent to the territory of Gobion. These give indications of the interactions between living beings thanks to a system of subjective representation.

The graphite lead cross-section of the site to a scale of  1/100 (1cm=1m) – from the secondary river bed to the dwellings on the shelf – reveal the “buffer zone which Gobion represents between the Reserve and the urbanized area. This representation emphasizes the presence of realities and practices at the heart of the study site: traces of the GR3, constructions of resorts, riparian leisure activities, motorized watercraft, northern limit of the Reserve…Attention was paid to a variety of trees (endemic, exotic…) and the nature of the very anthropized soils. The map superimposes the classic analysis (access and pathways, sunlight, wind orientation, location of buildings and trees…) on the reading of the co-presences identified by the students in charge of the populations of the Loire : animal, plant, fungi, etc.

The Liga research programme aims to redeploy our relation with the living, knowing that we will need to “negotiate forms of living together”, as indicated by the philosopher Baptiste Morizot. In this perspective the site of Gobion, today used by the municipality of La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin to welcome summer camps for children and teenagers, could be an entry point towards this connection. Henceforth, the choice of a reflexion on a micro-architecture appears as a possible vector. The research of usage scenarios allows to highlight the different elements of a programme aimed at feeling (seeing, hearing, touching, etc…) raising awareness of the interdependencies, engaging in reciprocity, favouring the conditions of a diplomacy. They also explore the situations, actors and potential stimuli of this, human and non-human, device.

Today, the research is at the stage of a sketch, initiating the elaboration of a design project. After discussions supplemented with observations, the students intend this micro-architecture for several uses ; camping, placing oneself in an attentive situation, listening, getting together, having a horizon of gathering and connecting to make a common world. It is not a question of building, but of wondering about doing and then the means to adopt. The nature of the site at Gobion (building constraints, flood plains) just as much the will to intervene as lightly as possible, lead to considering a reversible device. One of the initial conditions  of this research in progress.

Olivier Bouton, Caroline Zahnd and the research programmeObjects, Crafts and Computation

DATA_vessel is a prospective funeral monument whose unique form is determined by the personal data of the deceased. It is composed of three elements: a ceramic microporous printed olla, a cinerary urn printed in a bio-sourced and bio-degradable material as well as a tombstone made by digital milling. This is a transformative object which acts both on the social context that makes use by determining new ritual forms, and the environment with which it interacts.

After cremation, the assembled urn and olla are buried. The tombstone closes the device on the ground. A shrub, native to the territory, is planted close to the grave, then the olla is filled with water to irrigate. In time, the urn will dissolve by the action of humidity and the ashes will mix with soil. The shrub will deploy its roots around the olla in the humus inseminated with ashes. Trees planted in this way near graves will be protected by there commemorative aspect, making the funeral place a space of renewal for the living, both a sanctuary of the memory and of biodiversity.

Partners: Polytech Orléans, specialization in Innovations in conception and materials (ICM) ; Pompes funèbres Caton

KAÏROS Collective (Amélie Samson, Manon Souchet, Eva Vedel) and the research programme Objects, Crafts and Computation

Modern times have made us the slaves of measured, coded, calculated, fragmented time. Could we return to a more flexible perception of an unfragmented time, through an object which would encourage us to live differently by representing it in a vague way?  

καιρός is a perpetually changing, contemplative object which “gives time” and encourages us to slow down.Time is materialized by a slow and progressive transformation. Little by little, the water in the bowl evaporates and infiltrates the porous material, thus revealing a digitally created landscape inspired by natural forms (deltas, canyons…). The repetition of the cycles of water evaporation and infiltration creates deposits in the crevices and on the surfaces, metamorphosing the object in a singular and uncontrolled manner over a long time.

Antoine Blouin and the research programme Objects, Crafts and computation

Scrolling CO2 is born from research questioning “environmental”  ecology and “attentional” ecology by balancing the CO2 emissions of cell phone use with the time we spend using them.

The project aims to give a physical and sensorial representation of an invisible phenomenon. Each porcelain module, inspired by the carbon molecule, weighs 137 grammes, i.e. the average weight of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere every 2 minutes and 40 seconds. The average Frenchman spends about 600 minutes per week on their phone.

The device is composed of modules which spread ino the space with a combinatory logic, organic and organized, invasive and multi-directional. It expresses the bulk density of our screen-time consumption and its environmental impact.

From 15 to 17 September 2021, the team of the research programme, accompanied by Laurence Blasco-Mauriaucourt (ceramist and member of the Association Céramique La Borne), have implemented the construction of a mini, high temperature, direct-fired kiln in the framework of the “Bruits Communs” manifestation in Orléans. 

Website : https://bruitscommuns.com

Partners : Centre Céramique Contemporaine La Borne, Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré (Tours),École municipale d’art de Châteauroux, École Supérieure d’Art et de Design d’Orléans, Le Pays Où le Ciel est Toujours Bleu (Orléans), Centre d’art Contemporain Les Tanneries (Amilly), École Supérieure d’Art et de Design TALM-Tours.Sponsors : CCTHB Terres du Haut Berry, Dispositif PACT Région Centre-Val de Loire, DRAC Centre-Val de Loire, Orléans Métropole.

With the Design des communs collective including Lysiane Lagadic and Mikhael Pommier, co-ordinated by Sylvia Fredriksson.

Website : http://occ.esadorleans.fr/blog/2021/10/01/workshop-objets-denquetes/