« Call it anything », le label d’activités de F93 consacré à la triple catastrophe de Fukushima, signe une nouvelle saison d’invitations à l’EHESS, autour du séminaire « L’état des lieux ». Tous les derniers jeudis du mois, dans une nouvelle salle de l'EHESS.
Affirmer la recherche à l’endroit de la triple catastrophe que désigne le nom de « Fukushima » et définir ce qu’elle peut être et ce qu’elle doit faire, au regard des formes nouvelles ou anciennes des savoirs en général, de la technique, des sciences, des arts, de la politique, du droit, de l’écologie, de la culture, etc. tel est l’objet de ce séminaire mensuel. En-deçà et au-delà des savoirs spécialisés et des expertises en fait de nucléaire, il s’agira de déployer une expérience de recherche à partir de Fukushima en concentrant les détours auxquels l’événement nous invite. Le séminaire est organisé sous la forme de séance de travail de quatre heures, chaque séance accueillant plusieurs présentations et discussions de travaux et d’hypothèses récents ou en cours d’élaboration, autour d’une ou deux thématiques centrales.
Nous avons le regret de vous annoncer que la prochaine séance prévue le jeudi 26 mars 2020 est annulée.
Dates des prochaines séances:
- 23 avril 2020
- 28 mai 2020
- 25 juin 2020
Les précédentes séances ont été enregistrées, et sont consultables ici:
- 27 février 2020, la séance était assurée par Sophie Houdart, Vinciane Despret, Marc Boissonnade et Stéphane Sautour, membres du collectif.
- 28 novembre 2019, la séance était assurée par les membres du collectif autour du film issu de leur 3ème balade au Japon et présenté à la Biennale de Mechelen.
- 24 octobre 2019, la séance inaugurale était assurée par les membres du collectif, Marc Boissonnade, Sophie Houdart et Stéphane Sautour.
Attention, nouvelle adresse ! De 10h à 14h, à l'EHESS, 105 bd Raspail, 75006 Paris. Salle 9, 2ème étage. Entrée libre.
« Balades » à Fukushima
Au printemps dernier, du 19 au 26 avril 2019, le collectif « Call it anything » s’est rendu pour la troisième fois dans la région du Nord-Est du Japon, témoin de la triple catastrophe qui eut lieu le 11 mars 2011. En privilégiant cette fois-ci l’axe côtier sur lequel se sont déroulés le tremblement de terre et surtout le tsunami, les membres du collectif, 9 au total, ont souhaité considérer différemment l’événement nucléaire : en commençant leur « ballade » depuis Miyako, petite ville située quelques 250 kilomètres au nord de la centrale accidentée de Fukushima-Daiichi, et en descendant jusqu’à Tôkyô, il s’agissait de saisir d’un seul tenant les différentes facettes de ce qui est arrivé et travailler au cœur de ce qui se passe aujourd’hui.
En la matière, les digues en construction tout au long de la côte ont constitué un motif fort du voyage, rendant saillante la série de discontinuités à la fois spatiales et temporelles qui signent dorénavant l’entièreté du territoire. Un peu à la manière des planètes visitées par le petit prince de Saint-Exupéry, incommensurables entre elles, chaque rencontre, comme tenue par la présence du mur, dessinait bel et bien un monde à part entière : le gérant d’un hôtel ayant servi de refuge après la catastrophe, des pêcheurs ayant pris la mer à l’arrivée de la vague, le curateur d’un musée d’art prenant à sa charge une collection d’«objets catastrophés », des femmes exorcistes susceptibles de trouver un contact avec les âmes des disparus, un sociologue étudiant les rêves des rescapés du tsunami, un paysagiste amateur travaillant à rendre possible la communication entre les vivants et les morts, le curateur d’un musée d’archéologie et de folklore situé dans un village de la zone interdite, les officiants de deux temples gardiens de la tête et de la queue du poisson-chat tenu responsable des raz de marée… Chacun et chacune, avec ce dont il ou elle avait été témoin, décrivait dans le même geste ce qui lui importait, ce dont il ou elle voulait faire mémoire, ce vers quoi il ou elle voulait tendre aujourd’hui. Il s’agit maintenant, quelques mois après ce périple, de rendre compte de cela, sans écraser les singularités d’histoires qui se racontent souvent par à-coups ou dans les creux de l’expression narrée.
The members of the group will be present on october 18th. More information: http://contour9.be
Les membres de « Call it anything », le label d’activités de F93 consacré à la catastrophe de Fukushima, ont souhaité conduire un séminaire de recherche durant l’année 2018-2019. Celui-ci se déroulera les derniers jeudis de chaque mois, à partir d’octobre.
Affirmer la recherche à l’endroit de la triple catastrophe que désigne le nom de « Fukushima » et définir ce qu’elle peut être et ce qu’elle doit faire, au regard des formes nouvelles ou anciennes des savoirs en général, de la technique, des sciences, des arts, de la politique, du droit, de l’écologie, de la culture, etc. tel est l’objet de ce séminaire mensuel. En-deçà et au-delà des savoirs spécialisés et des expertises en fait de nucléaire, il s’agira de déployer une expérience de recherche à partir de Fukushima en concentrant les détours auxquels l’événement nous invite. Le séminaire est organisé sous la forme de séance de travail de quatre heures, chaque séance accueillant plusieurs présentations et discussions de travaux et d’hypothèses récents ou en cours d’élaboration, autour d’une ou deux thématiques centrales.
Le séminaire est à présent achevé. La programmation de la nouvelle saison 2019/20 sera annoncée prochainement sur ce site.
Retrouvez toutes les séances enregistrées et consultables ici:
- Jeudi 23 mai 2019, nous accueillions Nathan Schlanger. (enregistrement indisponible)
- Jeudi 28 mars 2019, Giovanni Occhipinti abordait les tremblements de terre célestes.
- Jeudi 28 mars 2019,Giovanni Occhipinti abordait les tremblements de terre célestes.
- Jeudi 28 février 2019, Elisabeth Claverie nous parlait du sujet " rendre vulnérables".
- Jeudi 24 janvier 2019, Elisabeth Lebovici est venue discuter de son dernier livre " Ce que le sida m'a fait" et de sa relation aux archives.
- Jeudi 20 décembre 2018, Mélanie Pavy invitait le réalisateur Philippe Rouy à présenter ses films questionnant le visible, l’invisible, l’aveuglement.
- Jeudi 22 novembre 2018, l'artiste Hikaru Fujii rencontrait les artistes Khalil Joreige & Joana Hadjithomas, autour de l'impossibilité d’écrire une histoire de la guerre au Japon et au Liban, l'impossibilité d’avoir des archives, la fiction.
- Jeudi 25 octobre 2018, séance d’ouverture avec les interventions de Vinciane Despret, philosophe, et Sarah Vanuxem, juriste, sur la notion de territoire.
De 10h à 14h, à l'EHESS, 54 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris. Salle A06 – 51, 6ème étage. Entrée libre
Call it Anything is invited by the artist Hikaru Fujii and Kadist, Paris to discuss the case of the Futaba Town Museum of History and Folklore in Futaba and its collection of artefacts–evidence of the ongoing disaster–from their displacement to their conservation, from their significance to their role as social, political or cultural agents. The discussion will be based on a recent visit to the museum in Futaba in April 2019 organized by Hikaru Fujii with some members of the collective Call it anything.
With Élodie Royer (KADIST, Paris), Valérie Sonnier and Jack McNiven (artists and drawing class professors at École des Beaux-Arts de Paris), Alice Thomine-Berrada (Curator at École des Beaux-Arts de Paris) and Clélia Zernik (Philosophy professor at École des Beaux-Arts de Paris).
Filmed round table discussion (held in French)
Tuesday, May 21, from 2pm to 5pm
Amphithéâtre de morphologie, École des Beaux-Arts de Paris
Registration required: mediation-paris@kadist.org
More information on Kadist's website !
MYAKO
Visite des “pierres et des stèles de tsunami”. Accompagnement de M. Akanuma (ancien responsable du refuge Greenpia) ;
Tour guidé de la digue et de l’hôtel Tarô en partie détruit par le tsunami ;
Discussion autour des danses « Kagura » de Kuromori avec Yoriko Kanda et la troupe ;
Rencontre avec un pêcheur (Toshiyoshi Hatakeyama) qui était sur son bateau le jour du tsunami, avec si possible une escapade sur son bateau (6 pers. Maxi).
ÔTSUCHI
Visite du “téléphone du vent” et de la bibliothèque avec M. Sasak ;
Visite du “mont baleine“.
Daijôji
Matinée au TEMPLE DAIJÔJI : Accompagnement de M. Saji, spécialiste des exorcistes ;
Rencontre avec 4 « ogamisama » (femmes exorcistes) au Daijôji.
ÔFUNATO
Visite du “Shiome”, monument érigé par un particulier, M. Katayama ;
Visite du musée du tsunami de Ôfunato.
KESENNUMA
Visite du musée Rias Ark en compagnie de Monsieur Yamauchi, curateur du musée.
SENDAI
Université du Tôhoku, séminaire de M. Kanebishi (étude des rêves des rescapés du tsunami).
MINAMI SÔMA
Rencontre avec Monsieur Kawashima (spécialiste de l’histoire des tsunamis ;
Visite du sanctuaire Okama (marmites de divination) ;
Visite du sanctuaire Namiwake (brise-lame) ;
Visite du temple Takoyakushi (temple de la pieuvre) ;
Rencontre avec la photographe Lieko Shiga dans son atelier.
FUTABA
Une journée en compagnie de l’artiste Hikaru Fujii. En particulier, visite dans la zone du musée abandonné de Futaba.
KASHIMA
Visite des sanctuaires de Kashima et Katori.
Visite du musée de l’histoire et des coutumes de Saitama (estampes poisson-chat)
Photo: PIERRE ANTOINE
Nous nous apprêtons à effectuer notre troisième balade dans la région de Fukushima et ses alentours. Nous serons un groupe de onze personnes concernées par l’initiative. Laquelle ? – on en présente le profil ci-dessous mais retenez qu’elle aborde cette fois-ci le motif du tsunami. Et pourquoi cette balade, à nouveau ? Disons qu’il y a ce sentiment tenace : ce qui a été perçu de la catastrophe en premier – vu, lu, entendu – est évidemment ce qu’on ne cesse plus de percevoir. C’est sur cette première version (impression ?) que l’on demeure. Et puis, ceci aussi qui nous pousse chaque fois à marcher : on a sans doute créé un peu trop vite et facilement. Alors, la difficulté, c’est le retour en arrière, il faut défaire, refaire, faire différemment, tout recommencer. En résumé, une balade, c’est une question de méthode. D’où faut-il partir et pour aller où, et avec le maximum de chances d’y parvenir ? Est-ce depuis ici ? Ou bien à partir de là-bas ? Nous concernant, nous n’avons d’autre choix que de partir d’ici.
D’une part, le caractère exceptionnel des événements survenus le 11 mars 2011 au Japon, un tremblement de terre, un tsunami, un accident nucléaire majeur, et de l’autre, plutôt qu’une suite de résultats, des recherches, des enquêtes et des témoignages qui constituent aujourd’hui un épais faisceau d’interrogations vives. Malgré la volonté, il reste difficile de trouver un endroit « à soi » et « à nous » pour approcher ce que le monde a fini par nommer la catastrophe de « Fukushima ».
Pendant quelques jours, par la forme, par le ton et par le cheminement de sa présence, un collectif de chercheurs et d’artistes * va tenter d’introduire ceux qui le souhaitent aux manières de « Fukushima ». Avec ce groupe, chacun sera un peu là-bas et ailleurs, et ce qu’il s’agira de maintenir et d’entretenir ici, à Montreuil, c’est une façon d’être depuis la catastrophe ou à partir d’elle. Cette invitation consiste à faire résonner en public ce qui peut se dire, se voir et se faire, mais de côté, obliquement, comme une ruse pour éviter les difficultés, mais aussi pour les inquiéter ou les déranger.
* En présence de Marc Boissonnade (F93), Elisabeth Claverie (anthropologue), Patricia Falguières (historienne de l’art), Sophie Houdart (anthropologue), Mélanie Pavy (cinéaste), Stéphane Sautour (plasticien), Alexandre Schubnel (sismologue) et quelques invités.
Lundi 25 mars de 10h à 18h
Matin (séance réservée)
· Qu’appelle-t-on « Fukushima » ? : une séance de réflexion menée avec les élèves d’un collège et d’une école primaire
· Juste une requête: des élèves imaginent des actions que le collectif effectuera dans la région de Fukushima à l’occasion de sa balade n°3 (du 17 au 30 avril 2019)
Après-midi (séance ouverte au public)
· Les catastrophes (1er mouvement) : Installation d’une série de sculptures en cours, par Stéphane Sautour
· On sort donc les tripes petit à petit, en faisant bien attention de ne pas les percer… : une lecture par Sophie Houdart et Mélanie Pavy
· Pourquoi « Fukushima » ? : discussion à propos du soutien et de la participation de F93 au collectif « Call it anything »
Mardi 26 mars de 10h à 18h (journée ouverte au public)
· Biennale de Mechelen (Belgique, octobre 2019) : Travail sur l’invitation proposée au collectif (avec la présence éventuelle d’étudiants de l’ERG/ Bruxelles)
· Les catastrophes (2ème mouvement) : atelier de travail autour d’une série de sculptures en cours, par Stéphane Sautour
· Une ville japonaise en Inde: visionnage d’un travail en cours, par Mélanie Pavy
· La place des livres : visite guidée et commentée des lectures de Sophie Houdart
Mercredi 27 mars de 10h à 18h (journée ouverte au public)
Matin
· Les précurseurs : Où en est la communauté scientifique des sismologues dans son analyse du tremblement de terre du Tohoku ( 11 mars 2011) ? Une discussion proposée par Alexandre Schubnel
Après-midi
· Mémoires vives : une réflexion autour d’un projet d’archives, en présence de l’historien Yann Potin
Jeudi 28 mars de 10h à 14h (à l’EHESS, Paris)
· Vu du ciel: Giovanni Occhipinti est chercheur à l'Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. Ses travaux portent sur l’étude de l’activité sismique grâce aux mesures de l’atmosphère et à la magnitude ionosphérique
Vendredi 29 mars de 14h à 18h (ouvert au public)
· Fukushima expliquée à ma fille : Accueil d’une classe de maternelle
· Séances de travail libres (en cours de réflexion)
Samedi 30 mars de 14h à 18h (ouvert au public)
· L’écriture du désastre : présentation du livre de Maurice Blanchot, par Patricia Falguières
· Notes sur Hiroshima : présentation du livre de Kenzaburô Ôé, par Elisabeth Claverie
· Untitled (Human Mask), 2014 : projection du film de Pierre Huygues suivi d’une discussion avec le collectif
En continu au Centre Tignous: projections des Monologues de Mélanie Pavy ; accès aux archives du collectif (visite et discussion) ; audition/retranscription des séances du séminaire « l’état des lieux » (EHESS 2018-2019).
Les 25, 26 et 27 mars 2019 de 10h à 18h; et 29 et 30 mars 2019 de 14h à 18h.
Centre Tignous d’art contemporain, 116 rue de Paris – 93100 Montreuil, 01 71 89 28 00, Métro : ligne 9, station Robespierre (sortie Barbès).
jeudi 28 mars à 19h, et dimanche 31 mars à 14h avec Sophie Houdart:
· Go Get Lost (vidéo 4'), les derniers instants d'un robot envoyé en mission dans le cœur de la centrale de Fukushima Daïchi.
· On sort donc les tripes petit à petit, en faisant bien attention de ne pas les percer… (récit-diaporama 50'), co-écrit avec Sophie Houdart à propos de nos expériences communes à Tôwa, petite ville de la région de Fukushima. (à paraître le 11 avril, pour la version papier, dans la revue Terrain).
jeudi 28 mars à 20h30: projection exceptionnelle de Cendres, un long-métrage documentaire co-réalisé avec Idrissa Guiro.
Photo: PIERRE ANTOINE
Graphic design: ONE MORE STUDIO
The collective Call it anything will open one of its working session to the public, on the occasion of the event conceived by Bétonsalon and the Carasso Foundation, in partnership with the Chair "Arts & Sciences" led by the École polytechnique / ENSAD - PSL around modes of research that cross arts and sciences. The public will be able to attend a reflection in progress, with its shortcuts, its detours, its impasses and leaps forward. This moment will be punctuated by a series of screenings, exchanges and lunches with the companions of the project that weave, near or far, a link with Fukushima. The studio will thus welcome, Elisabeth Lebovici / art historian, Roland Desbordes / president of CRIIRAD, Vinciane Despret / philosopher of sciences, or Nathan Schlanger / archaeologist and historian.
Curator : Mélanie Bouteloup.
Cité Internationale des Arts, 18 rue de l'Hôtel de Ville, Paris 4. From Friday, February 2nd 10am to saturday, February 3rd 10pm, non-stop. Free entry.
You can download the program here.
Photo: PIERRE ANTOINE
I like to think that our approach to “Fukushima” is inventive and full of creativity. In it, I like the idea of proliferation, the burgeoning, the fact that it has many forms. I also like its perishable nature, how it’s constantly shifting and always active, so much so that it’s essential to hitch it to a collective because that alone can make it last. What’s more, this situation has become creative in itself, and it helps our collective invent itself by offering it the opportunity to work on its development and continual renewal. From this point of view, it should be made clear that the aim of what is created and formed in our approach is not so much to cause some kind of truth about Fukushima unfold as to allow people to form a research group through the act of building up a picture of it. Not long ago, this tendency was also expressed in what we have called the “stroll” or “walk” in Fukushima: gatherings and trips in Japan, conceived of as a language, our language, essentially fuelled by the behaviour of each participant and the communications circulating between us, with the intention, once again, less of saying something than ensuring that we were all “on the same page”, as it were.
In our minds, neither the “stroll” in October 2016 nor the one we have just completed (October-November 2017), can or should be reduced to the eventual traces and recordings they leave or generate. Both of them perished with the present they symbolised. Caught up as it is in the fleeting collective alloy, of which for a moment, it crystallises the possibility, and is doomed to disappear with that moment, a “stroll” or “walk” is a matter of both the moment it marks and the silence to which it inevitably returns. As they stand, our two “walks” cannot survive; far from being identified with something rare, solid or “definitive”, their aim is instead - and this is an initial hypothesis – to revert into a thousand fragments, to allow us other expressions of the same kind, possibly based on different agreements or processes. Pertaining this time to our entire Fukushima project (that began in 2012), the “walk” seems to exist – our second hypothesis – increasingly through the leeway it offers in this whole (without, however, ceasing to be dependent on it): day after day, it gives the impression of introducing a surfeit, an excess, or even a fault line within a project originally structured using scientific, aesthetic and cultural codes, and from which it still receives, in part, its support and its conditions. To put it another way, with the “stroll” and the “walk”, we confronted a kind of breach permeating our original initiative; it shifts the balance without, however, eluding it, as if better to “play” upon itself. The modest proliferation of an unexpected creativity, the “walk” seems to act as a promise, a transgression, the shifting from one order to another.
A “walk” in Fukushima is also an operation. Our two experiments provide an opening description of what I mean by that; changing the reality, our reality, and changing style. In fact, thanks to the initiative of these “walks”, from an initial attitude based on our rapport faced with the Fukushima disaster, as individuals through the “classic” problems of formulations, surveys and information, we are now moving towards a freer perspective (and one that is also crazier and more troubled) that tries to consider a series of practices stemming from the number of disparate themes (knowledge, sensuality, etc.) that it is or will be capable of putting together - hence the difficulty we are currently experiencing in envisaging how to present this modus operandi and above all how it will be received. We have not yet found a satisfactory solution in that we feel the terms themselves need to be revised: the idea of receiving, for example, seems to eliminate in advance the hypothesis of a creativity other than that of the usual “recipients”: researchers, artists, “cultivated people”, etc. Indeed, the idea of aiming for and delivering a “finished product” is formidable yet essential. In our eyes, this principle seems to neglect another important point: the significance of our march lies in seeking what it might arouse and what we could apply to it in the interpretive processes. What we might be able to deliver from a “stroll” or “walk”, what we can define from it, seems to us to be secondary to the very wide range of ways that “others” will have of understanding and interpreting them, and will, in doing so, assign them with different meanings.
It is not about inventing a new version of a planetarium or devising another planetarium. Instead of adding, we prefer the idea of removing or subtracting. What? We don’t know yet, so that, as things stand, it would be better to talk about one less planetarium. Our attitude is that of ‘non-astronomers’ in the sense of people who have not yet encountered the question of astronomy for themselves but who nonetheless wish to make this ‘outsider’ situation into the vector for a journey. If we succeed, this journey could perhaps render discernible or even perceptible and conceivable what might have been forgotten or left aside in the idea of a planetarium. In this context, it feels as though we are supported by an intuition, of those who seek the means of a “What if?” What if, for example, a planetarium had something to do with a performance? Especially to skirt around certain ‘transitional’ moments, those somewhat superfluous moments that often link the various sequences of an account to give a ‘natural’ feeling to the whole, an illusion of reality. Instead of that, borne by voices and movements, an effective presence that tries to organise itself without knowing the ‘real’ content of astronomy, and that strives to put together what, until then, was provided to unify: us, the sky, the moon, time, the planets, stars, galaxies and nebula. Here, nothing will ever be immediate or direct; it will always be through what and whom we meet – both people and stars – that new configurations will be ushered in.
In a performance, everything takes shape slowly, fortuitously, at the discretion of the situations created by the participants. It’s a bit like bleached elements that you have to reconstitute by means of a series of circumstances. It means that we don’t ‘perform’ to have the sky, the stars or the planets explained to us; we are there to enrich these ‘objects’, to invest them with meaning, especially by multiplying the situations that can produce such meanings. The performance provides a collective duration that reassures and at the same is essentially influenced by its own occupants: it’s a moment of proximity but one that is fuelled by the unpredictable sharing of the relationships that unfold there. What’s more, this dimension is reinforced by the fact that neither the participants nor the sky, with its heavenly bodies and its stars, have, strictly speaking, fixed and determined identities. The first are constantly challenged by the ambiguous “perhaps” they get from those that follow. In this plot, the participants will make more progress as they learn to distinguish the verbs ‘propose’ and ‘dispose’: what is being proposed? Are we disposed to take it into consideration? What have we got to propose and what do we dispose of to do it? We believe that this distinction is the source of a series of effects; thus, the phenomena of comprehension, emotion, discordance or, on the contrary, incorporation may emerge, and all this without necessarily the support of a predominant element: neither from a ‘central character’ hidden behind the traits of the performer/observer, nor from the ‘scenery’ formed by the sky, its heavenly bodies and its planets.
Performed only once or often repeated, based on – or not – a storyline, improvised or the result of endless rehearsals, etc. The very substance of this planetarium has the ability to surprise in view of the summary description of its possible unfolding and the apparent contradiction it seems to encompass: using a process as free as performance to try and establish an approach just the slightest bit stable. But at this stage, it doesn’t matter, because the sake of a performance does not lie in the relevance and the precise definition of the elements that could, in the end, make up these situations. Instead it hopes, through the play of connections, parallels and interferences that will be established, to bond the amateur and astronomy in a different way.
Photo: PIERRE ANTOINE
Yann Fabès, Director of École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle - Les ateliers (ENSCI), and Daniel Véron, F93's chairman, are pleased to invite you to the exhibition Propagation de la monotonie. An approach designed by F93 to tell the story of the vast scientific equipment that is the Large Hadrons Collider (LHC). With the original contributions of Sophie Houdart, Simon Goubert, Grégoire Eloy, Stéphane Sautour, Eric Jourdan and Gaël Hugo.
at « La Galerie des Ateliers » de l'ENSCI - 48 rue Saint Sabin 75011, Paris. Open every day from 10am to 6pm.
Photos: PIERRE ANTOINE, SEBASTIEN AGNETTI
Not to renounce the idea of a policy for arts and culture, to consider the undeniable progress that this policy has made, but, at the same time, to continue to analyse and review the places where this policy has been able to be incorporated. In the current cultural situation in France, two recently-celebrated institutions can offer this kind of support: the Centre Pompidou and the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie. At first glance, there is something ambivalent about both of them; an attachment yet also a kind of condemnation, with both often perceived as being central to the problems encountered by the presentation of contemporary art as well as scientific culture. The Pompidou and the Cité thus play a strange role – on the one hand, it seems to be a decisive one, and on the other, it appears somewhat poorly defined. For certain observers, this paradox stems from the following claim: there is no reason why the community should spontaneously be in agreement about what the Pompidou and the Cité actually are, or the way in which each of them should establish a relationship with their respective fields, art or scientific culture.
Is the idea of a seminar in some way linked to the idea of disappointment? Not necessarily, even if there is something to be gained from this disappointment. For what, in fact, is disappointment? At the very least, it encourages one to wonder why we had expectations, why we were expecting this or that, what were expecting from this or that. And this is always the best incentive for questions and reflection. Why do we expect an institution, a museum or a “Cité” when it is explained that it also involves something else with regard to art, culture and science? Why did we believe – and continue to believe – that institutions such as the Pompidou and the Cité are the consequences of a certain knowledge of art or scientific culture? Among the possible answers is this: we cannot create contemporary and modern art or scientific and technical culture, without inventing the institutions that go with them. But, in some way, we know that these are fictions. And we need these fictions to give meaning to what is going on. And, with regard to what goes on at the Pompidou and the Cité, how should we approach these two institutions? Several approaches are imaginable. We could envisage “just turning up” in all innocence, with the idea of going back over what makes up the day-to-day life of the Pompidou and the Cité while trying to remain as faithful as possible to what they are. We could also ask more general questions, alluding, for example, to the international dimension, to see how the two institutions address this issue. We could also distance ourselves, situating the two establishments in a broader cultural context and describing their respective positions. We could even observe them based on what each says of its “theme”: art for the Pompidou, and the sciences for the Cité. Neither too close, nor too far; neither unreserved support, nor indifference, as it were. But this seminar also hopes to offer a browsing menu to match all its users, and we, too, are users although we would not presume to represent every user, and even less to assume that all users have the same expectations. With this in mind, it would be based on the multiple, active and speculative relationships that each guest participant has with the Pompidou or the Cité, or even with other institutions – myriad relationships that could help us make the Pompidou and the Cité exist differently. From this point on, the question of knowing what these two institutions actually are would no longer merely be a question to ask of the Pompidou and the Cité but a question that we would ask ourselves: what do we want them to be to us? What have we to say about these two institutions, and what do they say about us?
And lastly, to those who are interested in our approach but who might see more problems than solutions in the idea of crossing the “Pompidou” case with that of the “Cité des Sciences”, we would again like to reply with a legitimate problem of distance. With this kind of experiment, we found it useful to constitute something resembling distance from these two museums. We feel that this multiple perspective might encourage us to conceive of the Pompidou and the Cité as though they could be something other than what they are: starting off from one to move towards the other; defining numerous trajectories that could call into question the aspect of “necessity” that the two museums have necessarily accumulated over the years.
Let us attempt to conclude by returning to the title of this text: where do all these future contemplations lead? If the truth be told, we don’t really know. For it is possible – or even likely – that the questions we want to ask do not depend on some kind of knowledge, which does not mean that we should, in this case, renounce knowledge and resign ourselves to this. There are certain responsibilities that, in order to give rise to decisions and events, must not “follow” knowledge, resulting from knowledge like consequences or effects. To put it another way, the Pompidou and the Cité undoubtedly have nothing to gain from becoming a programme for which we would, at best, behave like “smart” missiles. The responsibilities, which determine and will determine “where this is going” for the museums, should perhaps remain disparate from the concept of knowledge and perhaps even from many of the concepts upon which we have built the idea of responsibility or decision. This is one of the reasons for which, in light of the “singular” dimension of the Centre Pompidou and the Cité des Sciences, we invite you to a seminar that we hope will be inventive, open and free. This does not mean that it will be devoid of method – on the contrary – it is driven by the idea of surpassing methods, but without assurance, without certainty - hence its dual nature, both contradictory and conflictual…
In October 2016, I spent a week about 50 miles from Fukushima’s damaged nuclear power plant. During this short time, I actively participated in a field survey that I’d call “simultaneous”, by which I mean a field trip that , within its own movement, superimposes distinct lines of work that are capable, once organised and harmonious, of bringing out the best in and grasping the real, imaginary or symbolic content of the places we visited. For me, it was 5, 6, up to 10 people, each following their own line of inquiry, walking together, with the impression, day after day, of benefitting from a powerful expressiveness far superior to any individual observation. The first “simultaneous situation” was devised in our office in Montreuil. To a large extent, it grew from our imagination. What I recall is a somewhat faltering formulation that began as a stroll, then a walk, then became a kind of field survey that I now call “simultaneous”. That led to creating a relatively precise pre-programme together with fairly specific observation tools. Notwithstanding, not everything was “created” by us beforehand; certain aspects, sketchily planned in Montreuil or left unresolved and eventually reincorporated in Japan “became”, by necessity, new terrains. By way of example, a local canoe/kayak club had to be available to bring a “run of the river” observation project to life. Ultimately, although we had spent time modelling tools in Montreuil, trying to bring them as close as possible to the project we had set ourselves, once we were there, we also allowed ourselves to connect existing elements to uses planned for the project. To qualify what I’m describing, “field professionals” usually talk of successive stages alternating principles of cooption and construction.
The fieldwork carried out in October 2016, as it unfolded in my case, should be clearly distinguished from its presentation - a term I use here to designate the situation as it is revealed to a listener to whom I gave an account. I’m even inclined to think that no-one could ever directly access “my” field survey, even if they were able imagine what it’s like from a very detailed account of it. Not even the other participants, there by my side during the trip to Japan, given that none of us was able to detach our awareness from our own particular activity, constantly immersed in “its” own space and subsequently incapable of being able to grasp the terrain in itself. Seen as a whole, this October 2016 field survey, as it were, does not, therefore, exist. However - and please forgive me in advance for the clumsy wording - something certainly did exist over there for me, and for us, in light of the circumstances. Surely, merely by being together at the same time in the same place, Sophie, Mélanie, Patricia, Stéphane, Yoann, Marc, Gaspard, Sylvie, Oussouby and Keiichi must have bestowed on it, or on part of it, a distinctive quality or function. Surely each spot we visited accommodated each of us differently so that we could find there a field study, or a landscape, or a trek or a place for exchange and discussion… This kind of “là où c‘était plusieurs” or “there were many ‘theres’” had already occurred to me in another memory; when a site was measured by some of us, especially with the counters they had to gauge the presence of radiation, it became for them an important source of information, but for others – those of us who were not measuring (as was the case for myself during the trip) – this same site was or remained something that was above all alive, terrifying, beautiful, etc.
In spite of the fairly lengthy preparations, this idea of a collective trip to Japan – a stroll, a walk, a simultaneous field survey– call it what you will– was never a foregone conclusion for all of us who were participating. Especially myself. We had our work cut out for us with this approach, with its various disciplines (anthropology, aesthetics, philosophy and cultural) that usually require a certain “comfort” to be able to express themselves, which were deliberately going to be “interbred” and, what’s more, in a “field” situation, another term which, again, was not an obvious process for some of us. More than six months later, each of us will tell you in our own way that we did it, and we did it pretty well if the fact that we’re about to return in October 2017 is anything to go by. There is no doubt that this was all part of the experience. It showed that, ultimately, each of us attained an equal level, at least with regard to the idea of the field and the idea of the walk; everyone, especially myself, seemed, during this trip in October 2016 and prolonged by our discussions since our return, to have reached a more or less similar level in terms of perception (I have no other word for it). Nevertheless, many questions remain – and no wonder! But we are addressing them in a gentler, subtler way. This is the case, for example, of the thorny issue of the identities, differences and therefore the limits that separate our respective disciplines; from now on, we are only discussing this problem “tête-à-tête”, on a one-to-one basis (our earlier idea, encouraging everyone to step out of his or her specific zone, only gave rise to disappointing responses owing to its too-general approach). We now know a little better, that we should beware of barriers, especially when experimenting. We need to live our second “Fukushima Walk” with a certain laissez faire attitude, without obligation, in other words, “without an agenda”, in a “Call It Anything” way – a phrase both funny and significant, which seems to bestow on all that it covers a form that is ungraspable, that cannot be reproduced, that is not static, not least through a programme with which we simulate an objective, an intention. Next October, we must once again allow the possibility of being together to emerge, beyond any utilitarian motive; Fukushima will give each of us something to say, and perhaps something to do – but what? That is not really the point…
Named Designer of the year 2017, Pierre Charpin is showing the bell he produced for the project Mirages with F93, on his booth at Maison & Objet.
Photos: PIERRE ANTOINE
Produced in the context of the project Mirages, Nicolas Moulin's artwork has recently joined the park of sculptures led by the contemporary art space of the HEC Paris campus.
Photos: Pierre Antoine
Avec la période de confinement, les démarches initiées en collège ont connu quelques changements, également quelques aménagements et surprises. Le moment est venu de présenter ce qui a été finalisé par les élèves, les enseignants et les intervenants. Cet espace de diffusion rapporte nombre de témoignages visuels, sous des formats à la fois fixes et animés, et invite les visiteurs à une découverte différenciée : en cela par projet identifié ou d’une manière plus aléatoire.