Le Fresnoy Research and Production Stay
Call for projects from doctoral students and research scientists
Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains is calling for applications from researchers interested in working on a project related to their research interest in an artistic environment that offers advanced audiovisual production tools.
This will be the second consecutive year for this residency which is part of the efforts taken by Le Fresnoy over the last ten years to bring together artists and scientists (technological support of student/artist projects by research laboratories; creation of an mixed arts/sciences research group, exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, symposium at the Collège de France on “The Dream of Forms”, etc.).
The chosen project will be scientific, or involve questions that touch on scientific concerns. The researcher will follow the same courses as Le Fresnoy artist/students and enjoy the same production resources for their project.
Context and issues
While the main forum for scientific research is specialist publication, in some cases such research also involves the creation of objects or devices that, rather than simple illustrations or by-products, are an integral part of the research process itself: the construction of a machine, say, or of an experimental apparatus to be used for an experiment or empirical study, the invention of a new technique, the experimental demonstration of the new properties of a material, or again the use of audiovisual equipment for the purposes of testing, recording or demonstration.
The history of the sciences shows just how varied these developments can be: chronophotography, fluid dynamics, the discovery of Kevlar, holography or X-rays, ethnographic films based on visual anthropology, films in ethology (study of human and animal behaviours), psychology or psychiatry (the study of autism), the empirical study of dune formation, mathematical models taking the form of didactic sculptures, evocative animal robots created by the first cyberneticians, the visual modelling of mass data and its manipulation, sonifying the genome in order to discover genes, notebooks of botanical observations, or drawings used to prefigure a standard for the visual representation of proteins, environments for ecological or economic simulations, etc.
Scientific inventions often require their own specifically created technical solutions or ones that are outside industrial norms. They are the manifestation of a technical ingenuity that is often fairly close to the way artists and audiovisual creators go about their work. The spectacular evolution of technologies for the production of images and sounds (infographics, speech synthesis, augmented reality, etc.) can be harnessed to scientific processes and research. Often, indeed, the dialogue with artists offers scientists perspectives that the concentration on their specific objects and research subjects had not revealed.
The aim of this project at Le Fresnoy it to place these practices, built primarily around scientific questions, in an artistic and audiovisual context. This new host environment will enable the chosen researcher to explore the aesthetic and narrative dimensions of their work and to test the efficacy of its transposition into a communicative language with young artists and with a non-scientific public.
Profile
This residency is intended for scientific researchers working in a laboratory and for doctoral students in the sciences, in any discipline (physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, archaeology, medicine, geology, psychology, sociology, human and animal ethology, mathematics, astrophysics, etc.)
Candidates must be aged under 35 and be able to demonstrate their research credentials (affiliation to a research laboratory, academic publications) and ensure that they will be free of their professional activities for the duration of their residency, or, failing that, will be able to continue those activities within the context and facilities offered by Le Fresnoy).
They will, preferably, be able to be permanently present at Le Fresnoy for the first three months of the school year (October to December), which is when most of the teaching is concentrated.
The chosen candidate will in effect have access to the complete teaching programme, and will participate in the same way as the other students. The only difference should be the (scientific) nature of their production.
Selection procedure
The selection is made on the basis of a dossier by a jury composed half of scientific researchers, half of the direction and the team of Le Fresnoy.
The application file must include all the following documents:
- a description of the project of maximum 3 pages specifying the desired work period
- a visual documentation of previous research work
- a Curriculum Vitae
- a letter of interest
Applications, as well as any request for information, should be sent by e-mail to the following address: vdelhaye@lefresnoy.net
For any request of information: Olivier Perriquet, in charge of research: operriquet@lefresnoy.net
Time schedule
- 15 May 2019 deadline for applications
- early June jury deliberation and communication of results
- October 2018 – June 2019 programme and working calendar integrated into the university year (to be finalised with the chosen candidate)
