Jean-Marc CHOMAZ is an artist and physicist, director of research at the CNRS, and professor at the École Polytechnique (Ép). He co-founded the Hydrodynamics Laboratory (LadhyX, CNRS, 1990), the Systems and Engineering Laboratory of Excellence (Université Paris Saclay, 2011-2023), La Diagonale Paris Saclay (2012), the Arts & Sciences Chair (Ép, ENsaD, École des Arts-Déco and Fondation Carasso, 2017-2023) and the SPIRAL Interdisciplinary Centre (2023). An alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), he has supervised 31 PhDs, including 3 in art, co-authored more than 250 publications, received the CNRS Silver Medal, 2007, the Grand Prix Ampère from the Académie des Sciences, 2012, and was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, 2001 and of Euromech, 2018. His research interests include soap film dynamics, instability theory, vortex bursting, geophysical fluids, and arts & science links. As an artist, he is the author of some twenty internationally exhibited installations, videos and published poems, and the co-author of some thirty installations presented around the world with Anaïs Tondeur, Ana Rewakowicz and Camille Duprat, Aniara Rodado, the Duo HeHe, Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand, Olga Flór, Anouk Daguin, Nicolas Reeves and the Labofactory collective co-created with Laurent Karst and François-Eudes Chanfrault in 2005. Jean-Marc Chomaz previously published in the Plastir special issue ‘The folds of memory‘ (2015), then in Plastir 50, 06/2018 in the form of a climatic fable and more recently Télescope d’intérieur with Anouk Daguin (Plastir 67,12/2022), unfolds here a fictional scenario around the beginning of time. Chapter after chapter, we discover the enigmas and great pages of the genesis of time (Incipit temporis). It is an extraordinary plunge from microcosm to macrocosm, and the ongoing discovery of fabulous worlds where the mystery of time unfolds, all illustrated with breathtaking images and videos that reflect, like Terra Bulla, Veridi Sol or Silmaris, the installation that gave rise to Exoplanète. A masterly illustration of the materiality of the sciences of life and the universe, and the tense relationship between the intentional text of the film and the fiction that emerges from it. Shifting balances, purity of light, the earth’s atmosphere, the blossoming of life, celestial mechanics, astral bodies, the paradox of the instant, the alchemy of the senses, the multiformity of the arts, the poetic versus physical dimensions of space and time, the relationship between man and machine, the erosion of time, the red shift, the supra-lunar world, the musical or choreographic imagination, gallops in the light… ». Several notions of Time come together, several Gods, several games » instils Jean-Marc Chomaz throughout the pages, recounting the art-science events and demonstrations produced in this context with artists or scientists, but even more so the intimate nature of space-time, its ingestion by living beings and cosmic forces, its folds and creases, shadows multiplied by the jolts of matter.
Bernard TROUDE is an engineer in industrial architecture and product design (CNAM Paris) and has a PhD in art sciences and materialogies and in the philosophy of social sciences (Panthéon Sorbonne and Descartes Paris V Universities). His current research focuses on my end-of-life sciences and medical ethics in hospitals, touching on various areas of neuroscience, physiology and psychology (intuition, perception, understanding). He is a regular speaker at international conferences in England, Italy, Tunisia, Morocco and the USA, and publishes regularly in Plastir (PSA Editor), Elsevier-Masson and the journals M@gm@ International (Italy) and TAKTIK (Tunisia). In recent years, the author has focused on the study of the relationship between philosophy and mathematics and has published a series of articles (Plastir n°59, N°63, N°65-06/2022) in this transdisciplinary perspective, the latest of which appeared in N°70 (09/23) on immateriality in mathematics and philosophy. PSA particularly appreciates authors like Bernard Troude and several others (including doctoral and post-doctoral students) who work in continuity, having chosen Plastir as their spokesperson. The depth of their work shines through all the better because it is spread out over time and grows, impregnated with the plasticity of the content. In this way, the mystery of the number is revealed a little more each time, from its binarity to its complexity, from its unreality to its materiality, from its multiple translations into ages, durations, equations and measurements to its phenomenology. Thus « the fact of the ONE allowing the thought of the TWO » or the number that makes the word appear, including in its form. Science and wisdom, IQ & EQ, elementary calculations, constants and infinities, unrolled semiotics, deciphering, binary 0/1 versus quantum computing, the birth of forms and counting in the brain, numerical assemblies, kinematics, rhythmic staves, true and false, so many cognitive gymnastics, representations of numbers inseparable from universal constants, the golden ratio or Pi. Is it the thought of the 1 that generates unity? Is it the nature of the two that defines otherness? Are they pre-existing? How far do the unconscious and the conscious fight over the code? An ode to the unspoken and to the expressiveness of the forces at play.
REPAIRING BRAINS AND HAVING THEM REPAIRED: A PATH TO PEACE IN THE WORLD. A PLEA FOR A NEUROPHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO RECONCILIATION
Péguy LUMUENE LUSILAVANA has a PhD in Philosophy and a Professional Masters in Publishing-Journalism. He is a lecturer and researcher in philosophy, specialising in Henri Bergson, and a member of the Société des Amis de Bergson. In this capacity, he works in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, Pragmatics, AI and Information and Communication Sciences. We have already published one of his articles entitled ‘From closure to monadic communication: Leibniz’s error’ in Plastir 62, 09/2021. In this new contribution, he shares with us his thoughts on the results of sociological research carried out by Thierry Blöss to elucidate the nature of relations between the generations as they relate to social inequalities. This study shows that private family mutual aid is not natural, that it cannot be taken for granted. The public authorities should therefore take responsibility for solidarity between the generations, to rectify the errors in their practice at family level. However, from the author’s point of view, this transition from private to public care requires serious reflection on the foundations of this public assumption of responsibility for solidarity, as the mistreatment of the elderly in EHPADs (Etablissements d’Hébergement pour Personnes Agées Dépendantes) shows that this transition is not a foregone conclusion. These foundations should take advantage of advances in cognitive neuroscience, particularly neuroplasticity and neoteny. These two concepts make it possible to think of the links between generations as transgenerational relationships. This cross-generational approach involves the reciprocal transmission of skills and know-how, which Péguy Lumuène Lusilavana calls technological and ethical co-learning.
Eric CAULIER has a PhD in anthropology (Université Côte d’Azur) and a degree in taijiquan from the Beijing Sports University. He has explored the different facets of Chinese energy practices through various university collaborations, ranging from physical education and philosophy to sociology and applied sciences. His approach is resolutely transdisciplinary and transcultural. Since 2021, he has been a guest lecturer at the World Taiji Science Days. Eric Caulier has taught thousands of students and trained around a hundred teachers. The author of around twenty books and numerous articles, he also works in the corporate world on self-management and ergonomics. He has also published on the subject in Plastir 37, 12/2014 The author’s reflections highlight the various elements of an innovative approach to ergonomics resulting from a fruitful collaboration between two taijiquan experts and the automotive equipment manufacturer Faurecia. This global approach – physical, cognitive, relational and organizational – has been built up over a period of fifteen years. It has been used in other sectors, notably with musicians from the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, cellist Jean-Paul Dessy and opera singer Louis Landuyt. It is the result of numerous study visits to China (Peking University, traditional transmission) and transdisciplinary research (for example, Mikaël Tits’ doctoral thesis on expert gesture using Motion Capture technology). Various research studies and experiments have shown that this method improves proprioception as well as awareness of the body and the environment. It engages the whole body, making movement more fluid and more inhabited. There are also psychological benefits in terms of mood, concentration and memory. This method has been presented at various conferences in France (Aix-en-Provence, Paris, Toulouse, Nice) and abroad (China, United States). It has also been the subject of a Master’s thesis in physiotherapy. Several decades of practice/research/transmission have made it possible to highlight the active principles of taijiquan, while at the same time developing a pedagogy for incorporating them. The effects of this holistic approach are not confined to the professional sphere, but permeate all aspects of daily life. It gradually leads to a different way of using the body and oneself. It allows us to slow down, to take care of ourselves, others and the world.