INTERVIEWS

11:00 am - 4:30 pm / In person / Bilingual

Seven years have passed since the last mapping of research-creation practices and methods within the Hexagram Network. Louis-Claude Paquin [co-investigator, UQAM] takes a look back at the practices of current Hexagram members. Many things have changed since 2018: it seems appropriate to rededicate ourselves to a new cartography.

During the four days of Rencontres Interdisciplinaires, Louis-Claude Paquin will set up a booth to interview participants about their practices. This data will be collected through video recordings then be categorized according to a model with five facets: cultural and social context, activities, corporeality, materiality and engagement.

WITH

Louis-Claude Paquin, Professor, École des médias, UQAM*

*(Hexagram member)

SPEECH

1 – 14:15 pm / In person / French

Join us for the official opening of the 3rd Hexagram Rencontres interdisciplinaires. This will be an opportunity to meet the new team and co-directors, as well as to welcome our collaborators from Toulouse, members of the Passerelles project. We'll be announcing the next steps in this exciting France-Quebec collaboration.

PANEL AND DISCUSSION

2:30 – 16:30 pm / Hybrid / Bilingual

Between art, science, and publics: What role for artistic experiments, objects, and interventions?

Art and design practices in collaboration with science and engineering produce new kinds of knowledge objects in the form of artistically driven events, experiments, and interventions that can inventively engage not only peers but also audiences outside academia around critical social-cultural issues (e.g. the political and environmental implications of climate transformation or the increased reliance on “intelligent” machine systems). However, there are still epistemological, ontological, aesthetic, and ethical tensions concerning the role and production of artistic objects within a natural, social and human-scientific research context. For example, the tension implicating the distance (or a lack thereof) between making and reflexivity; the tension between discursive-critique of techno-scientific “imbroglios” (e.g. AI, Climate Transformation, the More-than-Human, etc) and the production of non-discursive objects that address these issues; and the “transfer” of knowledge to abstracted and generalized non-academic audiences or publics versus the “making public” of such knowledge with specific and active communities. While these tensions point to different modes of “social negotiation, communication and distribution” (Rheinberger, 2019) of knowledge, what’s between artistic and scientific methods? How do artist-researchers account for, examine, and evaluate the role of interdisciplinary artistic experiments and experiences beyond subjectivity and individual experience? What frameworks can help to identify and understand what works and what fails within interdisciplinary processes? And through what modes can this be engaged with and responded to by publics? 

 PARTICIPANTS 

• Brice Ammar-Khodja, Individualized Program, Concordia University, Montreal*
• Edwige Armand, Lecturer-Researcher, Purpan School of Engineering, Toulouse
• Sofian Audry, Professor, École des médias, UQAM, Montreal*
• Marc-André Cossette, Individualized Program, Concordia University
• Frédérick Garcia, Research for Agriculture, Food and Environment – INRAE, Toulouse
• Floriand Grond, Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University, Montreal
• David Howse, Professor, Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Montreal
• Rilla Khaled, Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University, Montreal*
• Shauna Janssen, Associate Professor, Department of Theater, Concordia University, Montreal*
• Maurice Jones, Individualized Program, Concordia University, Montreal
• Louis-Claude Paquin, Professor, École des médias, UQAM, Montreal*
• Camille Prunet, Lecturer, University of Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, Toulouse
• Miranda Smitheram, Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University
• Gisèle Trudel, Professor, École des arts visuels et médiatiques, UQAM, Montreal*
• Jean-Ambroise Vesac, Professor, Unité d'enseignement et de recherche en création et nouveaux médias, UQAT, Rouyn-Noranda* 

MODERATORS 

• Alice Jarry, Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University, Montreal*
• Chris Salter, Professor, Zurich University of the Arts*, Zurich
• Bart Simon, Associate Professor, Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Montreal*  

*(Hexagram members) 

PANEL DISCUSSION

6:00 – 19:30 pm / Hybrid / English

LASER (Leonardo ArtScience Evening RendezVous) by Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) is an international program that brings together artists, scientists, humanists and technologists for informal presentations, performances and conversations with audiences. LASER's mission is to contribute to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and community development opportunities in more than 40 cities around the world.

The focus of LASER 13 is to counter dominant doom-and-gloom discourse about climate change, notwithstanding the urgent need to act in this complex situation. How can concerns, local and global, spatial and temporal, provide imaginative explorations through physical experimentations, enabling boundary processes in each field to be pushed? How do interdisciplinary alliances between fields foster new platforms for challenges, dialogues, and reflections? 

→ Full event description

Cochairs : Nina Czegledy and Gisèle Trudel

WITH

Martin Beauregard, artist and professor-researcher-creator, Unité d'enseignement et de recherche en création et nouveaux médias, UQAT, Rouyn-Noranda* Sandeep Bhagwati, composer and professor of music, Concordia University, director of matralab, Montreal*   Ana Rewakowicz, artist and professor in residence, École des arts visuels et médiatiques, UQAM, Montreal Carly Ziter, assistant professor, Department of Biology, Concordia University, Concordia Research Chair in Urban Ecology and Sustainability, Montreal

RESPONDENT AND MODERATOR

Brice Ammar-Kodhja, artist, designer and PhD student*, Concordia University and École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris - Université PSL  

(*Hexagram member)

PANEL DISCUSSION

11 am – 1 pm / Hybrid / French

It's often said that fragmented minds can only produce fragmented knowledge and societies. At a time when we are more aware than ever of the complexity of reality and of the interconnectedness of the questions that arise from it, it seems that isolated approaches to research are no longer adequate. Yet, for some years now, Quebec's science policy has focused on approaches that are no longer content to be simply transdisciplinary. It has taken this logic to a new level by blurring the boundaries between sectors that previously seemed very far apart. Today, we're no longer surprised to hear of cross-sectoral research between the health, natural and social sciences; or even to see artistic creation intersecting with psychiatry, engineering or quantum physics. But we still know too little about how teams doing such research manage to understand each other, share common goals, or collaborate in a continuous and conclusive manner.

In order to have an in-depth look at this subject, we're proposing two panels featuring front-line witnesses who have been lucky enough to take part in this kind of adventure. They will undoubtedly be able to reveal some of the methodological and epistemological aspects that sometimes emerge from blind spots, if not tend to remain in the shadows. Focusing on projects supported by two of the Fonds de recherche du Québec's intersectoral research support programs, PRISME (ART) and Audace, we will examine the trajectories of a number of Hexagram members whose research-creation approaches play a leading role.

PRISME (ART)

Between 2021 and 2023, the Fonds de recherche du Québec Nature et technologies (FRQNT) and Société et culture (FRQSC) jointly offered the PRISME (ART) pilot program, providing "an opportunity for science and art to interact" in order to better represent and understand our world.

SPEAKERS AND FEATURED PROJECTS

• Pépites narratives : intelligence artificielle et quête de sens — Jonathan Lessard, Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts,  Concordia University* & Leila Kosseim, Professor, Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, Concordia University


• Écriture chorégraphique pour essaims robotiques et humain(s) — David St-Onge,  Professor, Département de génie mécanique, ÉTS & Hélène Duval, Adjunct Professor, Département de danse, UQAM*


• Expérience de médiation du quantique grâce au béton augmenté : une démarche multidisciplinaire à l’intersection de la matière et du numérique durables — Jean-Ambroise Vesac, Professor, Unité d'enseignement et de recherche en création et nouveaux médias, UQAT*;  Marianne Prud’Homme, 3D Artist and Immersive Project Designer, UQAT ; Bora Ung, Professor, Département de génie électrique, ÉTS;  Olivier Landon-Cardinal, Professor, ÉTS;  Karina Huang Arcolezi, PhD Candidate, ÉTS; and Léa-Françoise Terrier, Masters Candidate, Muséologie, UQAM*


• Metamorphosis : nouveaux modes d’interaction expressifs en théâtre basés sur la réalité augmentée — Chris Salter, Professor , Zurich University of the Arts* & Timothy Thomasson, Lecturer, Concordia University*

MODERATOR

• Jean Dubois, Professor, École des arts visuels et médiatiques, UQAM*

*(membre Hexagram)

PANEL DISCUSSION

2:30 – 4:30 pm / Hybrid / French

It's often said that fragmented minds can only produce fragmented knowledge and societies. At a time when we are more aware than ever of the complexity of reality and of the interconnectedness of the questions that arise from it, it seems that isolated approaches to research are no longer adequate. Yet, for some years now, Quebec's science policy has focused on approaches that are no longer content to be simply transdisciplinary. It has taken this logic to a new level by blurring the boundaries between sectors that previously seemed very far apart. Today, we're no longer surprised to hear of cross-sectoral research between the health, natural and social sciences; or even to see artistic creation intersecting with psychiatry, engineering or quantum physics. But we still know too little about how teams doing such research manage to understand each other, share common goals, or collaborate in a continuous and conclusive manner.

In order to have an in-depth look at this subject, we're proposing two panels featuring front-line witnesses who have been lucky enough to take part in this kind of adventure. They will undoubtedly be able to reveal some of the methodological and epistemological aspects that sometimes emerge from blind spots, if not tend to remain in the shadows. Focusing on projects supported by two of the Fonds de recherche du Québec's intersectoral research support programs, PRISME (ART) and Audace, we will examine the trajectories of a number of Hexagram members whose research-creation approaches play a leading role.

AUDACE

Since 2017, the Audace program has aimed to link expertise from the three major sectors covered by the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) in order to start research projects "involving high risks, but with strong potential for scientific, social, economic, technological, cultural, aesthetic impacts, etc."

SPEAKERS AND FEATURED PROJECTS

• Écoutez l'expérience de notre voix : un projet de recherche intersectoriel et inclusif sur l'entente de voix — Sofian Audry, Professor, École des médias, UQAM*; Philippe-Aubert Gauthier , Professor, École des arts visuels et médiatiques, UQAM*; and Sandrine Rousseau.


• Co-création durable de structures d'oxyde de graphène réactives dans une approche transdisciplinaire des sciences des matériaux et du design. — Marta Cerruti, Professor, Material Engineering, McGill University & Alice Jarry, Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University*


• L’impression 3d de biomatériaux innovants comme nouvelle forme d’art écologique : la co-création d’une œuvre et de nouvelles formes de matérialité à base de résidus industriels forestiers. — Martin Beauregard, Professor, Unité d'enseignement et de recherche en création et nouveaux médias, UQAT* 

MODERATOR

• Jean Dubois, Professor, École des arts visuels et médiatiques, UQAM*

*(membre Hexagram)

SHOWCASE

4:30 – 6:00 pm / In person / Bilingual

In a relaxed atmosphere designed to encourage open discussion, student members of the Hexagram Network present their latest research projects. Whether in the form of digital posters or a Pecha Kucha, our members' contributions will provide an overview of the past years of research-creation.

WITH

Anne-Charlotte Baudequin [France]  Julien Dajez [student member, UQAM]  Ninon Deljehier [France]  Mélodie Claire Jetté [student member, UQAM]  Celia Vara Martin [student member, McGill]  Albertine Thunier [student member, UdeM]  Anthoniy Val [France] 

PANEL DISCUSSION

6:00 – 19:30 pm / Hybrid / English

LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening RendezVous) by Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) is an international program that brings together artists, scientists, humanists and technologists for informal presentations, performances and conversations with audiences. LASER's mission is to contribute to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and community development opportunities in more than 40 cities around the world.

During LASER 14, panelists will discuss AI's emergent qualities in each of their own fields. They will discuss its role and how it provokes or induces changes in their practice of research-creation, environmental data science, indigenous knowledges, and governance. By sharing novel approaches, which includes the importance of addressing biases, ethics, societal and environmental impacts, the goal of this event is to navigate evolving concerns about AI. 

→ Full event description

Cochairs: Nina Czegledy and Gisèle Trudel   

WITH

• Sofian Audry, Artist and Professor, École des médias, UQAM, Hexagram Co-Director*
• Blandine Courcot, Physicist and Environmental Data Scientist, Dot-Lab, TÉLUQ University
• Fenwick McKelvey, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University*
• Suzanne Kite, Oglála Lakȟóta performance Artist, Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies Bard College, Research Associate Abundant Intelligences

RESPONDENT AND MODERATOR

• Ola Siebert, Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Communication, UQAM* 

(*Hexagram member)

PANEL DISCUSSION

11 am – 1pm / Hybrid / French

For the Rencontres Interdisciplinaires 2024, Hexagram is pleased to welcome a delegation of researchers from Toulouse and Paris, members of Passerelle Arts Sciences Technologie. The members of this delegation will be the focus of this panel discussion, which invites us to question the contribution of the non-human to the creative process.

Founded in 2016 with a wide range of actors from the scientific, artistic, and institutional fields, Passerelle works to bring together disciplines through its creations and national engagement in defense of these issues. The association is characterized by its commitment to the search for a new epistemology and to the long-term weaving of interdisciplinary relationships. By experimenting with new interactions with society, Passerelle Arts Sciences Technologie is committed to transforming our relationship with the world.

Come and meet Edwige Armand, Thierry Besche, Yves Duthen, Frédérick Garcia, Camille Prunet, and Christophe Vieu to discover their artistic and scientific.

With the support of the Service de coopération et d'action culturelle of the Consulate General of France in Quebec City.

DEMONSTRATION AND DISCUSSION

2:30 - 4:00 pm / In person / French

Valued for its immersive qualities, digital art can serve as a medium to help us explore the senses. Through touch, smell, hearing or sight, our sensory perceptions merge into a universe where the line between reality and illusion is blurred.

Five artists, invited by Yan Breuleux [co-investigator member, UQAC-NAD], will present excerpts from their latest research-creations in digital art. Following the demonstrations, participants will engage in a collective discussion on the mediation of research through creative objects.

FEATURED CREATIONS

Les arbres communiquent entre eux à 220 hertz, by Nelly-Ève Rajotte, Professor, École de design, UQAM

Nelly-Ève Rajotte's project plunges viewers into an immersive sensory experience that explores techno-romantic aesthetics. Using the Boreal Forest as a central motif, the video installation provokes reflection on the ephemeral nature of the world and its own disappearance. It draws inspiration from the sublime landscapes of Romanticism, represented by artists such as Caspar Friedrich and William Turner. Focusing on the conservation of nature through digital technology, this creation uses the LiDAR digitizer to digitally preserve places in danger of extinction, allowing them to be studied and preserved. The title refers to a creative approach aimed at questioning the differences between communication systems in natural and human environments.

Bodies of Water*, by Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, Professor, Département de danse, UQAM

Bodies of Water is a virtual reality choreographic project shot in an aquatic environment. The ten-minute film uses stereoscopic (3D) and ambisonic technology, i.e. sound spatialized according to the orientation of the viewer's head. The work recounts the metamorphosis of bodies in contact with water: an all-encompassing, fluid and malleable material that creates both flexibility and resistance. Produced at the public swimming pool, the work begins as a fiction that gradually slides into a sensory exploration where movement dictates the sole dramaturgy. The venue is plunged into half-light and eight clandestine swimmers emerge from the darkness. Bodies submerged in water cross the boundaries of their habitat and undergo metamorphosis.

*The work is a collaboration between Chélanie Beaudin-Quintin and Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, freely inspired by an original script by Oriane Morriet.

EN/GLOBE, by Marie-Eve Morissette, Masters Candidate, UQAC-NAD*

EN/GLOBE is an immersive, interactive installation that reveals a space for exploration and aims to raise awareness of sensory perception at the visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory levels. Consisting of three unique spheres, the work invites the public to enter and experience each in its own unique way. The work acts as an interface between the artist's intentions and the audience's experience, leaving them free to draw their own interpretation and develop their own narrative. The work is presented as an interactive multimodal system that encourages self-expression. This installation is the second phase of a research-creation project aimed at evaluating the fruitfulness of an innovative approach to interfaces based on encounter and the principles of soma-aesthetics.

The installation was created and presented to the public during a research-creation residency at Hexagram from October 2-13, 2023.

Capter les corps : émergence d’une installation scanographique, by Jean-Philippe Côté, PhD candidate, études et pratiques des arts, UQAM ; and Louis-Philippe Rondeau, Professor, Cofounder of the Mimesis Laboratory, UQAC-NAD*

The contemporary processes of digital photography - immediate and direct, algorithmically manipulated in real time - paradoxically contribute to distancing the subject, eroding the connection between the medium and its referent. From the perspective of media archaeology, the installation revisits a pivotal moment in digital photography: the advent of the scanner, a tool that has now been relegated to the periphery by the smartphone. Reminiscent of David Hockney's photographic "joiners" and Yves Klein's anthropometries, the installation captures an intimate imprint of the subject over an extended temporality in prolonged physical contact. It reverses the tendency to control our mediated image, leaving room for the contingencies of the device and its material serendipity.

MODERATION

Yan Breuleux, Associate Professor, Head of the Mimesis Laboratory, UQAC-NAD*

*(Hexagram member)

This program is presented by the École des arts numériques, de l’animation et du design de l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC-NAD) and the research chair CREAT.

DÉMONSTRATION

4 - 17 : 30 pm / In person / French

The notion of agentivity in video games, often understood as freedom of action and choice for players, is now refocusing on the quality of these choices. It's not so much the number of possible actions that's important as the fact that they are interesting and meaningful.  

In this session, we'll take a look at four research-creation video game projects in which designers hope to create a dialogue with players around meaningful experiences.  

Each designer will give a 10-15 minute demonstration of their game. The public will then be invited to test and discuss them. 

FEATURED GAMES 

CLTRS by Laureline Chiapello, Professor, UQAC-NAD*

The CLTRS video game invites players to immerse themselves in a playful exploration of the author's feminine vision of sexual pleasure. Rolling through a baroque boudoir, the avatar explores space, discovering the landscape of the body and sparking life wherever she goes. Sometimes all you have to do to reach orgasm is explore! 

Divine Affaire, by Jonathan Lessard , Associate Professor, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University*

Divine Affaire is a research-creation game in which you take on the role of a deity for a Bronze Age community. She receives prayers in the form of polite e-mails from her believers, draws her power from their sacrifices and performs miracles to improve their lives. The game features a detailed simulation of mortal life, where every human action has a cause and effect, creating a dynamic social world. It also includes a self-editing encyclopedia, documenting every person who has ever existed. As a deity, the player must make difficult ethical choices they performs miracles, knowing that the exact consequences are beyond their control. The game is experimental, a little shaky, but unique in its approach. This game is funded by the FRQ-SC. 

Au fil des mois, by Edouard Raffis , Masters Candidate, UQAC-NAD

Au fil des mois is a captivating walking simulator experience inspired by the artworks, particularly paintings and photographs, of its creator's great-grandfather: Paul Provencher, a forestry engineer who spent most of his life in the forests of Quebec's North Shore. The game was developed as part of a research-creation project that aimed to study the process of video game developers in order to understand how their values are modified in relation to their project. 

Après que tu sois parti, by Andrea Su, Masters Candidate, UQAC-NAD*

Après que tu sois parti is a short narrative walking simulator game about its creator's experience of grief. The game was developed as part of a research-creation project to explore the process by which video game developers talk about difficult or traumatic experiences through the creation of games. 

*(Hexagram member)

This program is presented by the École des arts numériques, de l’animation et du design de l’Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC-NAD) and the research chair CREAT.

DISCUSSION

6:00 - 7:30 pm / In person / Bilingual

The Open Forum is a method of discussing complex issues based on an agenda co-created by the participants. Professors and students are invited to engage in an open exchange about the challenges of doing research in an academic setting, including intellectual property, mentoring, work organization, work-life balance, career development, and more.

WORKSHOP

11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. / BY INVITATION ONLY

Focusing on the themes of artistic, theatrical and playful performance in a technological context, this workshop aims to bring together diverse practices that share the experience of the body and interaction in a real-time interactive environment. The goal is to forge connections between participants in the hope that the 3D representation of their research-creation questions in the same virtual space will stimulate an enriching conceptual friction for the Hexagram community.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Unité d'enseignement et de recherche en création et nouveaux médias de l'Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Université Gustave Eiffel, l'IMAC (France), and le Petit Théâtre de Rouyn-Noranda.

SHOWCASE

2:00 - 4:30 pm / Hybrid / French

RC in XR, Research-Creation in Extended Reality, is a creative sharing workshop focusing on topics related to artistic, theatrical and playful performance in a technological context. It aims to bring together different practices that share the experience of embodying and interacting in a real-time interactive environment.  

For several months now, the researchers Florent Di Bartolo, Jean-Pierre Flayeux, Hugo Montembeault and Jean-Ambroise Vesac [co-researcher member, UQAT] have been investing the space of the Place des Festivals district and its digital twin - a virtual environment created by their team - as a means of mobilizing and sharing research-creation projects and issues. It's a new, playful and performative approach to the co-construction of knowledge. 

Through the interpenetration of the physical and the digital, the XR device creates a space for dialog between urban, human, technological, artistic and theoretical materials. This XR environment is problematized through the integration of fragments of theoretical thought, artistic content, and procedural functions that ensure the playability of the device through specialized interfaces. This configuration allows for a multiplayer performative situation in which mixed materialities have been assembled to inflect what Kattenbelt calls an "aesthetic orientation", i.e. a performative mode characterized by an amplification of the affective feeling and self-reflexive processes of a perceiving subject towards a represented social world.   

The public is invited to participate in the presentation of RC in XR as "game controllers".  

The virtual space will become the integrating stage for the different research-creation axes of the team. The public will be invited to appropriate the device by entering the virtual world with a "playful attitude" (Henriot, 1989). Those who play will be able to participate in the reflection on the forms and movements of being together. Will the relaxed atmosphere and the playful improvisation of the scientific discourse create a "friction" that generates new ideas? 

Co-Principal Investigator

Jean-Ambroise Vesac, Professor, UQAT.

Collaborators

Hugo Montembeault, Professor, UQAT; Florent Di Bartolo, professor, UGE- LISAA; and Mariane Laporte, artist, UQAM.

Presenters

Éric Létourneau, professor, UQAM; Patrick Gauvin, Professor, UQAT; Gaëtan Robillard, UGE-IMAC; and Caroline Gélinas, artist.

Participants

Danny Perreault, Professor, UQAM; Yin Bai, ÉTS; Laureline Chiapello, NAD-UQAC; Shauna Janssen, Professor, Concordia; Maxime Michaud, student, UQAM; Fanny Pimpurniaux, student, UQAT; Alexandre (Aldé) Demers-Roberge, student, UQAT; Sébastien Duplessis, Student, UQAT; Thomas Boeckstaens, Student, UQAT; Valentin Guiller, Student, UQAT; Paul Lavenant, Student, UQAT; and Maxime Périgny, Student, UQAT.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Unité d'enseignement et de recherche en création et nouveaux médias de l'Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Université Gustave Eiffel, l'IMAC (France), and le Petit Théâtre de Rouyn-Noranda.

PARTY

6:00 – 7:30 pm / In person / Bilingual

An experimental music event closes the Rencontres Interdisciplinaires. Come and celebrate the end of this week of encounters with a drink.

First,Philippe Vandal*, inspired by architecture and neo-materialism, opens the happening with a sound performance orchestrating erratic and unpredictable parameters resulting in glitches, noise, ambient and electroacoustic sounds.

Then researchers and creators Alexandre Castonguay*, Danny Perreault* and Jean-Ambroise Vesac* - explorers of party technologies, co-creation processes and digital togetherness - and their guests take over with their connected machines for an improvised collective electronic performance with Marianne Laporte*, Thierry B. Gateau, and Sébastien Duplessis* (VJ)

*Hexagram member