As Serge Bouchardon, Direc­tor of the UTC-COSTECH Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Pro­fes­sor in ICT, sees it, the artists and sci­en­tists have lots of points in com­mon. Wit­ness the shared approach in research and cre­ation that aims at eman­ci­pat­ing actors from raw, direct obser­va­tion of real­i­ty to bet­ter seize its deep nature. This spe­cial­ist in dig­i­tal writ­ing is also an author in the field of dig­i­tal lit­er­a­ture. He explains why sci­ence and art would find it advan­ta­geous to work together. 

What links do you see between artistic creation and engineering sciences?

Both artists and engi­neers must have an in-depth knowl­edge of their ‘sup­ports’ and tools (dig­i­tal tools, for exam­ple) they use in their work. Their shared adven­ture is how they con­trol and use their tools and on how they con­tribute to ‘lend­ing mean­ing’ to their work, and new dimen­sions opened by (or avoid­ed by) tech­nol­o­gy and its progress which is a reflec­tion that is very impor­tant in dig­i­tal oper­a­tions which is the basis of today’s tech­no­log­i­cal milieu. One form of col­lab­o­ra­tion con­sists of wel­com­ing artists into our aca­d­e­m­ic lab­o­ra­to­ries. Exper­i­ments were con­duct­ed as of the 1950s, then fur­ther devel­oped in the 1960s and 70s. Nowa­days, we see more fre­quent inter­ac­tions and indeed real-life col­lab­o­ra­tion. The alche­my between artists and sci­en­tists is a frag­ile sit­u­a­tion, where going beyond the spe­cial­ty bound­aries (lead­ing to sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and aes­thet­ic break­throughs) pre­sup­pos­es that art is not serv­ing sci­ence, nor the reverse. Artist-sci­en­tist col­lab­o­ra­tion often leads to rethink­ing the pri­or­i­ties, val­oris­ing the process rather than the results, but also throw­ing light on the role of pro­to­types as some­thing com­mon to artists, research sci­en­tists and engi­neers. This col­lab­o­ra­tion is exem­pli­fied in the stage work pro­posed by ALIS who explore non-ver­bal lan­guage uses. In 2015, an artis­tic res­i­den­tial agree­ment was signed with UTC, under the denom­i­na­tion research artists in res­i­dence, with the aim to under­line how artists can be total­ly involved in the sci­en­tif­ic research work. In sym­me­try, sci­en­tists can also be actors in artis­tic cre­ation, as we can see in the project called La séparation. 

But why do you get student-engineers involved in artistic projects?

The way you can learn cre­ativ­i­ty can come via var­i­ous chan­nels, among which a primer to artis­tic cre­ative prac­tices. Engi­neers, above all oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions, build uses but can also be inspired by artis­tic works that, in essence, reroute and rethink the uses and invent new pos­si­ble worlds and ways. Some fea­tures here can be seen as shared by artists and engi­neers. When an engi­neer designs objects, he/she is in fact doing a DIY mix of het­ero­ge­neous ingre­di­ents (they can be sci­en­tif­ic, social, eco­nom­ic …). Such hand­i­craft is akin to the work done by artists when seek­ing their ingre­di­ents for a piece of art-work. For sev­er­al years now, I have had stu­dent-engi­neers get involved in dig­i­tal artis­tic cre­ations, and also had them work with the artists them­selves. In this approach they have a bet­ter sense of the inter­de­pen­dence of tech­ni­cal and cul­tur­al aspects in the dig­i­tal world. 

What is the contribution and ‘creative’ role in your research?

UTC often empha­sizes research-design approach­es, where the basic hypoth­e­sis is that research can not only help us under­stand and imple­ment but also to imple­ment and under­stand. This idea come hand-in-hand with research cre­ation which allows you to cre­ate and under­stand. This nov­el approach is encour­aged at UTC by the Research Direc­torate and also by the UTC Daniel Thomas Inno­va­tion Cen­tre who wish to take advan­tage of (and build on) the stu­dents’ artis­tic poten­tial. It is my priv­i­lege and plea­sure at IUTC to embody this research-cre­ative approach, among oth­ers. As a research sci­en­tist, my work focus­es on dig­i­tal writ­ing (mul­ti-media, inter­ac­tive, col­lab­o­ra­tive projects), espe­cial­ly in the field of e‑literature, where I am inter­est­ed by stag­ing inter­ac­tiv­i­ties and the role of ges­tures in inter­ac­tive writ­ing. A research-cre­ation approach is an invi­ta­tion to design and assem­ble exper­i­men­tal set-ups (objects …) which allow me to ver­i­fy cer­tain hypothe­ses and cer­tain con­cepts. Cre­ation allows you, in effect, you cre­ate the con­di­tions need­ed to ensure observ­abil­i­ty of phe­nom­e­na and their occur­rences. Research-cre­ation can prove attrac­tive for the design­ing of objects/practices that relate to the dig­i­tal world. The lat­ter are still being per­fect­ed and the cre­ative approach offers oppor­tu­ni­ties to ‘think dif­fer­ent­ly” and to per­ceive as yet unknown lev­els of meaning.