Biographie: Directeur de recherche au CNRS, architecte et historien. Laboratoire Telemme, MMSH, Aix-en-Provence. Spécialiste des villes de l’Empire ottoman durant la période contemporaine. Responsable du pôle Espace, représentations et usages de la MMSH. Après avoir étudié plusieurs grandes villes ottomanes du monde arabe : Le Caire, Beyrouth, Damas, travaille actuellement sur les Balkans. Auteur et coordinateur de plusieurs ouvrages dont Analyse spatiale, cartographie et histoire urbaine, Marseille, Parenthèses, MMSH, 2008. Damas, urbanisme et architecture, 1860-1925, Arles, Sindbad Actes Sud, 2006. L’urbain dans la monde musulman de Méditerranée, direction d’un collectif , Paris, Maisonneuve & Larose, 2006.

Contribution: Naviguer et/ou construire un corpus, un nouvel outil de gestion de la documentation iconographique numérisée

Résumé: Grâce aux nouveaux moyens de numérisation, la documentation iconographique numérique s’accumule dans les disques de nos ordinateurs et il n’est pas toujours aisé de s’y retrouver. Un nouvel outil qui permet de satisfaire à la fois une approche ludique de la découverte et les exigences scientifiques d’un corpus construit se révèle prometteur. Il constitue un moyen d’investigation de la documentation, en ce sens, il ne s’agit pas seulement de classer la documentation mais aussi de la penser.

Samuel BORDREUIL

Biography: Samuel BORDREUIL is a sociologist interested in public space, electronic arts, and urban studies. He is a senior research scientist with the CNRS and Director of the Mediterreanean Center for Sociology (LAMES) at the MMSH (Aix-en-Provence).

Contribution:

Abstract: This talk will not be concerned with the net effect of computerized sciences as opposed to science without computers. Rather, it will address some of the challenges that arise for social scientists when their object of inquiry is itself completely computerized.

Jean-Pierre DAUTRICOURT

Biography: Jean-Pierre DAUTRICOURT is a composer, performer, and sound technology researcher. He most recently served as Executive Director of the Camargo Foundation, a US non-profit organization which operates a residential and cultural center in Cassis for scholars and artists from around the world. His previous experience includes 20 years as R&D professional in music and media arts, bioinformatics, visualization and knowledge management. He also composed and taught music at several American universities. Dautricourt trained both as an engineer and as a musician, and holds a PhD in music composition from Harvard University. He has published multiple articles and essays, notably on pattern recognition, database similarity searching, and software tools for music composition. His current research interests include new sound transformations, new performance virtual spaces and high-resolution audio over networks.

Contribution: Technology and High Dimensional Changes in Music Practice

Abstract: Technology heralds new digital music instruments, controllers and interfaces for real-time performance, and performance spaces. New types of data gathering by scientists enables us to see and hear more, as scientific data can yield new visual and auditory information about life in its multiple forms and effective 'language-bearing' mappings of this data into perceptual spaces are developed. Networks help expand the realm of collective creativity by enabling creation and performance of music in high-resolution with distant partners, ushering new forms of collaboration across worldwide communities and a far-reaching range of styles. These expanded combinations and possibilities mark the huge impact of technology and computers on musical art practice in our era.

Colette ESTABLET

Biography: Colette Establet is a historian. She first studied the letters of the Némenchas caïds from an Arab corpus of the Algerian colonial era. Her research then turned toward the Middle East while at IREMAM in Aix-en-Provence. With JP Pascual, she used serial sources, post mortem inventories, and accounts of orphan management in Damascan society of the XVIII century. These documents, reliable because they are official property records, are rich in words (owned objects) and numbers (quantities of objects and their values). The quantity of “numbers and letters” was so significant that a digital analysis was required. The result of the work has been published in several works published by IFPO in Damas , including Familles et fortunes, Damas, en 1700 ; Ultime voyage à la Mecque (on pilgrims who died accidently in Damas around 1700) ; Des tissus et des hommes, Damas, vers 1700. Another work treating the “gent d'Etat” (the askar) in Damas during the XVIII century is almost finished.

Contribution: Information technology: Help!

Abstract: Some historical data is such that, without digital tools, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to analyze. The data consists of more than 600 official documents written by judges in Damas around 1700, detailing post mortem property content and value. The data includes the contents of homes and shops; each object not only has a value, but also a description. Thus, there is an important corpus of numbers, letters, and words. The human eye can get lost in the forest of data. Digital analysis allows us to separate patrimonial behaviors of each social group and the particularities of the accumulation of goods attached to the statute or gender of the deceased.

Biographie: Colette Establet, historienne, agrégée d'Histoire et Docteur, a d'abord travaillé à partir de corpus arabes, (des lettres de caïds des Némenchas), sur l'Algérie coloniale. Puis elle s'est tournée, au sein de l'IREMAM (Aix en Provence) vers le Moyen-Orient. Avec JP Pascual, elle a utilisé des sources sérielles, inventaires après décès et comptes de gestion d'orphelins concernant l'ensemble de la société damascène au XVIIIème siècle. Ces actes, documents fiables car transmetteurs de propriétés, sont chargés de mots (les différents biens possédés) et de chiffres (les quantités de biens et leur valeur). Le nombre des "chiffres et des lettres" était tel qu'un traitement informatique s'imposait. Le résultat de ce travail s'exprime dans plusieurs ouvrages publiés par l'IFPO à Damas : Familles et fortunes, Damas, en 1700 ; Ultime voyage à la Mecque (sur des pèlerins morts par hasard dans Damas vers 1700) ; Des tissus et des hommes, Damas, vers 1700. Un autre ouvrage est sur le point d'être terminé concernant la gent d'Etat (les askar) à Damas au XVIIIème.

Contribution: Au secours, l'informatique.

Résumé: Certaines données historiques sont telles que, sans les outils informatiques, elles seraient difficiles, voire impossibles à traiter. Dans plus de 600 inventaires après décès (damascènes vers 1700), fiables car destinés à transmettre la propriété, le juge détaille la composition et le montant des patrimoines des défunts, accumulant des nombres et des valeurs. Il y décrit par le menu le contenu des maisons, des boutiques, mettant sur chaque objet non seulement sa valeur, mais son nom, sa qualité, son état, sa couleur, sa composition, etc. : aux chiffres s'ajoutent donc les lettres, les mots. Dans cette forêt de données, l'œil humain se perd : le traitement informatique permet de dégager les types de comportements patrimoniaux de chaque groupe social, les particularités des accumulations de biens liées au statut du défunt ou à son appartenance sexuelle.

Dominique HABAULT

Biography: Dominique HABAULT is a senior scientist at CNRS (French National Center for Research). She is now the director of the "Laboratoire de Mécanique et d'Acoustique" (LMA-Lab of Mechanics and Acoustics) in Marseille, and of the GDR "Bruit des transports", a research network on Transport Noise. Her research field is the propagation and radiation of sound waves, including theoretical and experimental aspects. Her first research works were dedicated to the description of the propagation of acoustic waves in open spaces, with applications to the prediction of sound levels emitted around highways. She now works on the prediction of phenomena of sound radiation by vibrating structures and on the characterisation of sound sources. The objective is a better understanding and modelling of the phenomena responsible for the sound generation. One main application is the prediction and the characterisation of the noise radiated inside and outside a vehicle (car or train). Her most recent works include the study of the relations between the physical and perceptual aspects of sound radiation. She is a member of the French Acoustical Society - she was Vice-President from 2002 to 2005. She is a member of several committees for the development of cooperations on Transport Noise.

Both LMA and the GDR are CNRS units. The main research fields of LMA include the modelling of the mechanical behaviour of materials and structures, as well as Physical and Perceptual Acoustics and Musics. The GDR is a network of 20 French research teams. The objective is to develop cooperation programs on the prediction, the effects and the reduction of ground transport noise.

Contribution:

Abstract: The impact of the computer sciences on the field of research is a wide subject. Only a few features will be pointed out in this talk. The main part will be dedicated to the specific case of the modelling and experimentation as it is carried out at the Laboratoire de Mécanique et d'Acoustique. In this lab, the general objective of the studies is to extend knowledge in the description of phenomena in the field of Solid Mechanics and Acoustics, in order to provide a better understanding and prediction tools. We develop cooperations with academic institutes (universities or research institutes) and with industry. Both positive and negative aspects of the effect of the computer sciences will be presented and illustrated by several examples. Some questions will be briefly discussed such as the influence of the new technologies on the orientations of research, the relations between modelling and experimentation, the kind of models to be developed for the next 10 years.

Pierre LIVET

Biography:

Contribution: Network capabilities and knowledge as a revision process. Problems of phase coherence.

Abstract: A researcher now has access to a huge repository of past knowledge (let aside problems for archives requiring specific and expert knowledge to read and interpret them) and to a huge flux of knowledge in progress. Knowledge in progress is a collective and collaborative mixture of hypothetical knowledge, beliefs, programs of research, data not still confirmed, still in discussion, to be revised. Data are normally the best candidates for triggering revision. There is still hidden knowledge ( ex: experiments the results of which are not to be communicated because of the competitive pressure). A researcher (rationally) communicates data when the time needed for other researchers to obtain them and to exploit them in order to arrive at an acceptable state is longer than the time remaining for the first researcher to have the paper published. Therefore data arrive too late to trigger useful revision of other works on the wrong track. The time needed for stabilizing the knowledge in flux is the one of a paper, not of a book. What about more encompassing perspectives? Answer: books on the net. The difficulty is that if data cannot trigger revision in the right time, what triggers revision, when have we to trigger revision, and how to revise using this mixture? Opinion of authoritative experts ? Too conservative. Majority of opinions in the network? Too unstable. Result: discontinuities in the research programs, programs too hastily given up, and periods of multiplication of clones of a seminal research.

Networks facilities require a kind of prudential virtue: to stop revising when the interest of discussion decreases but also to keep side-sensitivity to possible sources of revision.

Patrick McCRAY

Biography: Patrick McCRAY is a history professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before becoming a historian of modern science and technology, he trained as a materials scientist. He has written many articles and two books on the modern physical sciences including astronomy, physics, nuclear weapons, space exploration and nanotechnology. He is currently writing a new book on technological enthusiasm in the U.S. after 1970.

Contribution: Telescopes, Technology, and the Changing Practice of Astronomy

Abstract: Driven by the need to get as much observing time as possible and the desire to take advantage of the best observing conditions, modern observatories have experimented with new technologies and modes of collecting images and spectra. This entailed a re-casting of the telescope by astronomers and science managers as a factory of scientific data and scientists as customers who order up astronomical data that is delivered to them electronically while they monitor the process through Internet links. This talk addresses the issues associated with these recent changes in astronomical practice. It also connects with the theme of “intimate science” by briefly looking at a case study of how amateur scientists participated in a worldwide science project that provided a sense of common purpose and goals. At the heart of this is the question: how have technological changes altered what it meant to be a scientist, be it amateur or professional.

Roger MALINA

Biography: is an astronomer and editor. He is currently running the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence. He was previously the Director of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille and the Executive Director of the Center for EUV Astrophysics at UC Berkeley. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and Co Chair of the IAF ITACCUS committee for the cultural utilization of space. His current research interests include space telescope instrumentation and observational cosmology, particularly understanding the nature of dark energy.

For 25 years he has helped run the Leonardo organizations which promote art-science-technology collaboration and has served as Executive Editor of the Leonardo publications (journals and books) at MIT Press.

Contribution: Intimate Science and the End of Theory in Astronomy

Abstract: Modern astronomy has been transformed by the computer sciences in a number of ways. Large computerized instruments now collect almost all our information about the universe. This data is deposited into large databases called Virtual Observatories. This data, unlike photographic plates in general, is made publically available on line so that researchers, whether professionals or amateurs, can access it. This has led to a re birth of amateur astronomy with significant contributions both by experts and interested publics. An example of this is the Berkeley Open Infrastructure Consortium (BOIC) which allows the public to be involved in research ranging for malaria and climate modeling to analyzing data from planets. A second impact has been the growth of computer simulations as a major way of developing scientific hypotheses, particularly in complex systems or systems with large numbers of particles. This has been particularly successful in cosmology and modeling the evolution of structure in the universe where we now have a self consistent simulation that models the universe from soon after the big bang to the present. Scientific simulations have acquired an independent status as verifiable hypotheses in astronomy. Some have called this development the End of Theory in the sense that in cosmology there is no compact description of the universe with predictive power (as is the case for instance in quantum mechanics or electricity and magnetism). Instead the hypothesis consists of a computer model, with a large number of built in physics and system descriptions, together with rules for calculation. Predictions of the simulation are then compared with data from large data bases, often in virtual observatories. The third impact has been the development of scientific visualization techniques for investigating and searching for correlations and patterns in large datasets. Analytic techniques coupled with visualization techniques are credited in leading to new discoveries (an example is the work of artist Donna Cox with the astronomer Colin Norman); there are a number of examples of visualization driven discovery in mathematics, and a field called Visual Mathematics, has evolved. The classical field of Image Science has been re invigorated with new possible connections to the arts.The result of these three development: large open data bases, simulation techniques, and scientific visualization have led to changes in both the content and methodology of modern astronomy. Certain problems could not be attached without modern computer science, hence the direction of research is modified, and the scientific method itself is changing with scientific simulations acquiring epistemological status.

Jacques MANDELBROJT

Biography: Jacques MANDELBROJT is a painter and theoretical physicist born in 1929 in Asnières, France. First oil paintings in 1943. His paintings have featured since 1954 in more than 30 one man shows and 20 international group exhibitions. Former Full Professor of physics at Université de Provence, he also created and directed from 1970 to 1973 the University Department of Visual Arts at Luminy. Member of LEONARDO editorial board since 1970. Member of MIM (Laboratoire de Musique et Informatique de Marseille), he created with the composers of MIM numerous painting-music works. His dual experience as painter and theoretical physicist led him to write since 1967, over 30 articles, published mainly in LEONARDO, on the comparison of creative processes in art and science, and two books, in particular "Les cheveux de la réalité," Editions Alliage, NICE 1991.

Contribution: The Brush and the Mouse

Abstract: A work of art must be adapted both to the artist and to the medium he uses. How are diverse features of art expressed and perceived in art created with traditional media (the brush) or in computer art (the mouse)? What can be said about movement; time, the role of the onlooke..in each of these arts? A comparison with the making of science is made.

Christopher NEWFIELD

Biography: Christopher NEWFIELD is a professor of American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a co-founder of UCSB's Center for Nanotechnology in Society, and his research areas include research funding, higher education policy, innovation processes, and the cultural dimensions of social development. Recent books include Ivy and Industry: Business and the Making of the American University (Duke University Press, 2003), and Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class (Harvard University Press, 2008).

Contribution: Does the Internet Increase Innovation?

Abstract: Throughout the 1990s the Internet was synonymous with innovation, making it difficult to ask what make the Internet innovative or, more basically, whether it actually was. Its rise coincided with that of network theory in the social sciences, and with a new round in the internationalization of finance capital and of marketing. More recently, Internet-based social networking is credited with the Obama Revolution in political campaigning. In the area of scientific innovation, the Internet is an exemplar of and metaphor for concepts like "open innovation" and "creation nets" being developed by John Seely Brown and others. This talk will briefly survey this terrain and then ask if we do know what elements of electronically-mediated networks enable innovation (on top of the primary functions of marketing and information-gathering). I'll suggest that networks are ambiguously good or bad depending on how they organize human factors. I will outline two of these human factors that are not features of networks as such.

Colette TRON

Biography: Colette TRON was born in 1968 in Marseille and studied communication and language. After having worked in cultural journalism, she is currently working as an author, using different mediums of communication of language (radio, books, theater, audiovisual, multimedia...), questioning their functions, and experimenting with specific creation that is unique to each. She collaborates with artists from different disciplines, in France and elsewhere (Japan, Italy, Morocco, Russia). She publishes texts in poetry reviews, participates in festivals reading poetry, works with directors in theater, writes and interprets her texts for sonorous creations, is invited to collective projects using electronic and digital technologies, and participates in colloquiums with forms of writing-NTIC as their theme. By founding the Alphabetville association (www.alphabetville.org) in 2000, she created a place of reflection around the rapport between language and the media, and tries to articulate practice and theory by dialoguing with the artists, researchers and cultural operators involved. In 2005, she directed and edited the collective book New Medias, New Languages, New Writings and, in 2008, she is collaborating on the publication of another collective book called The Poetics of the Digital

Contribution: Computer program, digital medias in artistic creation: when modes of representation are included into the technical support

Abstract: As an author and critic, one of the things I do consists of developing ways to consider new practices and new tools of communication and creation which are the New Information and Communication Technologies. That concerns digital medias in comparison with previous medias, and in observing the relationship between art and technical support. My specific field of reflection consists of taking on the material (technical) and spiritual (symbolic) relationship between media(s) and language(s). All forms of expression, all languages, can now be produced or processed by digitalization or the digital. Thus, creation is affected and causes new proceedings at the origin of representation systems. We can analyze that by paying attention to the history of the relationship between technique and art. But the specificity of digital media is that the models of representation can appear without having a referent in reality. Another point concerning representation, and linked to programming systems, is artificial intelligence. It is the first time in art history, as in the sciences, I would say, that artificial organisms can imitate nature so much and so well, not only in appearance, but also in behavior. I would like to try to explain how and why it is a mutation for artistic creation.

Emmanuel VERGES

Biography: Emmanuel VERGES is an information and communication specialist and has been the director of ZINC/ECM for the past 10 years. ZINC/ECM is a media lab based in La Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille and focuses on cultural practice in art and information technology developments.

Contribution:

Abstract: Computer science has impacted the evolution of art creation as well as the production and diffusion of cultural content in our society. It spearheaded the evolution of cultural representation of art creation, cultural content production and diffusion in our society. These changes can be analyzed using digital and networked tools and from the choice we make to include technologies in our society. I will present proposals based on the McCray thesis and analyzed from my experience as director of ZINC/ECM for the past 10 years.

Pierre VERGES

Biographie: Entré au CNRS en 1969 au LEST.

Abstract: My sociological approach considers the social representations of social actors. By reviewing the path research has taken, one can demonstrate that only information science permits the formalization of discourse, a formalization that gives the entire stage to the social actor. Only information science allows for a description of society in which social groups are not only entities having characteristics and behaviors, but also constitute an activity of symbolic construction and intervention in social reality. First of all, information science allows for a significant added-value to the reading and the interpretation of social representations: it brings out a “natural logic.” Secondly, information science allows construction of a tree hierarchical structure of discourse. In other words, a formalization of reasoning used by social actors to analyze, justify, and convince. This tool for description and writing not only permits formalization of discourse, it also takes into account the manner in which discourse is enunciated and taken charge of or put at a distance by the speaker. The commitment of the researcher in his analyses is not only “ideologic” since it is controlled by a formalization, it is a parameter of his reading of texts. Finally, information science permits the interpretation of one reader to be put back into the world of interpretations that circulate on the Internet.