The interdisciplinary research group Life in the Making is composed of anthropologists, chemists, biologists, historians, and artists... who work on different research programs: "Anthropology of Life" (Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale, Collège de France), "Origins and Conditions for the Emergence of Life" (IRIS OCAV, PSL), Closed Systems and Modeling of Life (SYVIE, MITI CNRS), "Imitation of Living Beings and Modeling of Life" (IMOVIE, MITI CNRS), "Domestication and the Making of the Living" (DFV, CNRS/PSL site nursery).The project leaders are the anthropologist Perig Pitrou (CNRS- Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale, Collège de France) and the chemist Ludovic Jullien (CNRS-ENS-UPMC PASTEUR).
La Vie à l’œuvre (Life in the Making), a collective of researchers in the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, as well as artists, was set up at the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres in 2014 to explore interdisciplinary collective intelligence around the theme of the living. Functioning as an incubator of ideas, they explore the potential of living beings, particularly via experiments between art and science. A Stream 05 – New Intelligences article to discover!
Collective intelligence has become key to understanding and acting upon the complexity of the contemporary world. But how can the conditions for its advent be brought about? Originating in PSL, the “Life in the Making” collective, which brings together researchers in natural sciences, in the humanities, as well as artists, has been exploring this dialogue between intelligences around the theme of the living since 2014. By operating through a flexible framework, the collective has developed a praxis of interdisciplinary collective intelligence—all the while establishing new insights on life, in particular through experimentations between art and science.
Collective intelligence has become key to understanding and acting upon the complexity of the contemporary world. But how can the conditions for its advent be brought about? Originating in PSL, the “Life in the Making” collective, which brings together researchers in natural sciences, in the humanities, as well as artists, has been exploring this dialogue between intelligences around the theme of the living since 2014. By operating through a flexible framework, the collective has developed a praxis of interdisciplinary collective intelligence—all the while establishing new insights on life, in particular through experimentations between art and science.
Designing an inclusive city implies involving their residents in urban projects, but what is the role of architects and urban planners in this process? For Andrew Freear, the head of the Rural Studio program, they both have the ethical responsibility of getting locally involved via concrete projects. Architectural schools must thus take on training citizen architects by engaging them in learning by doing, and thus have them redevelop a deep connection with context and places, acting as neighbors and activists within communities in order to collectively carry out experimental projects that tangibly improve society and the environment.
The two Lebanese artists and filmmakers were awarded the 2017 Marcel Duchamp Award for Unconformities, a project currently on display at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. This artwork, like their approach, is based on a methodology of investigation and excavation and aims to offer another reading of history and the traces of the past.
Nicolas Nova is a social anthropologist. Inspired by New Media Studies and design fiction, he contends that the future of design lies in recycling and reparation as well as reinventing forms and functions. Did you know that a used flip-flop could serve as a lighter?
The geographer and orientalist Augustin Berque revisits the polysemic dimension of the term “milieu,” and explains the distinction made by mesology—“the area of biology that deals with the relationships between the environments and organisms”—between “environment” and “milieu.” The reality of things differs depending on the environment of each species or culture, the object doesn’t exist in itself but according to its relationship with the subject. In this way, mesology goes much further than the subject/object dualism of modern science. Ontologically “trajective,” the environment is neither objective nor subjective, but firmly between the two theoretical subject/object centers. Berque takes the term “mediance,” meaning the dynamic coupling of the individual and their surroundings, from the Japanese “fūdo,” to which he adds “trajection,” a process that results in the “mediance” of human existence in its concrete surroundings. Taken as a whole, all human environments, distinct from the biosphere through their eco-techno-symbolic dimension, form the ecumene. For architecture, this implies a respect for history and the environment, without mimicking ancient forms, creating from the “mediance” of each place.
Larissa Fassler is a “Neo-Situationist” artist. By exploring places over the course of many hours, she gleans their ephemeral essence, which she then superimposes on the fixed urban master plan. The subjective maps thus generated highlight both urban narratives and history.
Maximum is a design studio that maximizes the value of waste; its material, its form and its engineering. Some materials are transformed in a semi-industrial process while others give birth to unique pieces, such as the glass walls of the Centre Pompidou caterpillar.
Explore More
Eager to share more generously the results of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, its online magazine!