Challenging the matter
FRENG
Knitting DNA, creating a ballet of drops in levitation, printing organs in 3D, making an atom visible to the naked eye, navigating in nanomaterial, these examples illustrate the richness of the meeting of art and fundamental science. While defying the laws of physics and life, the artists and researchers open doors to the infinitely small and the infinitely large.
BOOTH [NEF]
Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 19:00NefChallenging the matter
Inside-Out
By Carolin Vogler in collaboration with the ChromDesign Project
Do you know what chromatin looks like? The happy meeting between textile technology and scientific research on chromatin organisation might turn into a fashion design hit. “Inside-Out” proposes an engaging experience where the blueprint of life is visible to the human eye and visitors are invited to actively participate in the installation and finger feel it. An artistic approach to DNA replication with a knitting machine and you might even have the chance to wear it!
Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 19:00NefChallenging the matter
OS.WAAM (wire arc additive manufacturing)
Parametric Functional Sculptures by Sebastien Wierinck in collaboration with Print Pioneers (B.I.G. Group)
How to bring large-scale metal 3D printing to society? Through the artistic input, this residency is pushing the technical limits of large-scale metal 3D printing. The main goal is to develop a new workflow for the production of a series of structures halfway between the public art piece and the urban furniture, which should allow to raise public awareness of the multiple possibilities of this new design and production system at several scales, from small objects to larger environmental and architectural integrations.
Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 19:00NefChallenging the matter
Embryonic
By Valeria Abendroth in collaboration with the 3D Prime Project
Can art help us reflect on the evolution of the human body through technology? Embryonic proposes a sensorial experience between reality and fantasy. From realistic 3D printings of human organs designed for medical training, you are invited to discover a fake laboratory combining these organs with art objects created by the artist. Compared to classical anatomic imaging, the ability of manipulating these physical objects brings a new dimension of awareness of their characteristics - size, shape and texture.
Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 19:00NefChallenging the matter
Suspended Moment
By Dominique Peysson and the LEVITATE project
Can ultrasound levitation be nimble enough to create poetry? “Suspended Moment” is a ballet of two liquid drops in levitation, dancing around in a slow and fragile manner, until they finally merge. The inert matter then starts a proto-life: the drop begins to divide itself under the audience’s eyes. Behind the poetry, lies in-depth technological research. The team combines ultrasound levitation and chemistry to find the liquid that can levitate, merge and divide without damage as well as performing the perfect trajectory of the drops.
EXHIBITION [AT6]
Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 19:00AT6Challenging the matter
Hilbert Hotel
By Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand in collaboration with the 5th Physics Institute (Stuttgart University) and the EU Quantum Flagship, with the support of Creative Industries Fund NL
How can a fully occupied hotel of infinite scale continuously accommodate an infinite influx of new guests? David Hilbert was among a contingent of mathematicians, stretching back to Zeno, who pondered such questions of infinitesimal spatial granularity. “Hilbert Hotel” is a curvilinear ion trap that electrically levitates its myriad microscopic guests. These hollow glass microspheres float along startlingly square-shaped orbits, tracing the quadrupolar electric fields that keep them airborne. When charged particles are levitated by electric fields an exotic state of matter emerges, known as a Coulomb crystal. Paving the way to quantum computers and to physics beyond the Standard Model, Coulomb crystals also offer uncharted perceptual territory. Their direct observability has led to a series of ion crystal artworks that will culminate with Atom Chasm, a laser-cooled ion trap laying bare individual atoms.
Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 19:00AT6Challenging the matter
Reactive Matter
By Scenocosme : Grégory Lasserre & Anaïs met den Ancxt in collaboration with the Programmable Matter Project
What if programming could turn interactive objects into organic matter? The technology of the Reactive Matter project is made of small robots: “the Blinky Blocks” based on claytronic atoms (or catoms). They are small interactive objects that can be assembled like cells in order to create large structures. They have the ability to function in interdependence and they can also communicate with each other. Based on those Blinky Blocks the artists created a sculptural and interactive artwork with organic behaviours.
Saturday and Sunday 12:00 to 19:00AT6Challenging the matter
Biobot / Insider
by Zoran Srdić Janežič in collaboration with Kambič
Can we grow biological robots? The residency is dedicated to creating an environment for the biological robot to grow and survive. In collaboration with the biological equipment manufacturer Kambič, the team designed and produced the Insider incubator that will be both a living and exhibition environment for the Biobot. Insider will serve as the visual display of life's drama, happening within artworks incorporating live material. With the state of the research presented in this exhibition, you can discover the incubator with the growing neurons for the Biobot's body.
PERFORMANCES & PROJECTIONS [SALLE 200]
Saturday, 15:30 & Sunday 16:00Salle 200Challenging the matter
Always Dead and Alive
A video by Theresa Schubert in collaboration with Immersify (Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center PSNC)
What if pixels were considered as interacting agents able to self-organize? The residency combines research on the evolution of patterns in nature and self-organisation of forms with generative video. The team created ‘Always Dead and Alive’, a computational video and surround audio experience. It takes us in a flow of light, color and sound, playing out a sequence of patterns based on cellular automata rules. The resulting scenarios between geometric abstraction and minimalism challenge our usual boundaries of perception.
Saturday 17:30 & Sunday 17:30Salle 200Challenging the matter
Sci-Fi Miners
A performance by João Martinho Moura in collaboration with the CritCat Project (INL)
Can nanotechnologies replace rare materials? This residency team explores how, with the help of scientific advances in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, a new generation of nanoclusters are replacing critical natural resources becoming very rare on planet earth. “Sci-fi Miners” is an audio-visual, interactive and virtual reality performance where the artist takes the audience on a journey on the nanometric scale of matter.
ROUNDTABLES [AT7]
Saturday 14:00AT7 Challenging the matter
Janus
By Stéfane Perraud in collaboration with the Hybrid Optomechanical Technologies (HOT) Project
How to understand better and demonstrate the interaction with light and matter? Stéfane Perraud has been working with the H2020 EU project Hybrid Optomechanical Technologies (HOT) to study an optomechanical micro object that reacts with the light of a laser. A video installation is being created, showing the process of manufacturing an optomechanical object created to interact with the light in order to generate a chaotic effect.
Sunday 18:00AT7 Challenging the matter
Alfred
By Collectif TOAST in collaboration with the DEAN Project (CEA)
How well do we anticipate the impacts of the technologies we develop? The Collectif TOAST challenges the DEAN Project on a new material the tech team created at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). This new intelligent material is a polymer that can be modified with heat. The artists analyzed the different physical states of the material and created various objects, helping DEAN to discover potential uses and limits of this new material.