Mobilisation

Interactive dispositif, 2015
An EnsadLab / médialab (Sciences Po) project
under the direction of Samuel Bianchini (EnsadLab)
with the partnership of the team of the médialab of Sciences Po

Interactive and graphic design: Alexandre Dechosal (EnsadLab)
IT development: Jonathan Tanant (EnsadLab)
Video apparatus: idscènes and Modulo PI
Design of the structure: Adrien Bonnerot and Tom Huet (EnsadLab)
Manufacture of the structure: EnsadLab and Michel Delarasse
Preview images: Christophe Pornay (EnsadLab)

Special thanks to Frédérique Aït Touati, Audrey Baneyx, Barbara Bender, Timothée Collignon, Dominique Cunin, Ian Gray, Bruno Latour, Pierre Legault, Emmanuel Mahé, Oussama Mubarak, Élodie Tincq, Sylvie Tissot, Tommaso Venturini

This project implementing the database of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is produced as part of two projects supported by l’Agence nationale de la recherche: ANR Medea (Mapping Emerging Debates on Adaptation) and Cosima (Collaborative Situated Media).

The research and development of this apparatus are conducted in association with the development of Mobilizing.js (www.mobilizing-js.net), a programming environment for mobile screens, conceived by EnsadLab, for artists and designers.

To download this image in HD (Tiff), click here

Mobilisation
Sciences Po, Paris, October 2015
Photographs: Samuel Bianchini

A mobile, a sculpture moving in the slightest wind or draught, is suspended from the ceiling of Sciences Po’s reception hall. This mobile is composed of a hundred flags onto which are projected (in video “mapping”) information, letters. When the mobile and the flags are agitated by the draught, the video projection tries to adapt in real time to the movement. It tries, because it only succeeds to a certain extent, as the physical mobile regularly takes back its rights, especially when surrounding movements disturb its environment.

Each flag is initially blank, onto which three typographical characters are projected, representing the name of a country: FRA for France, etc. All the countries represented contributed to the IPCC, the global scientific expert consortium on climate change. Although not directly mapped, the layout of these flags responds to the world organization of territories.

Before the text even comes to life, it is possible to perceive other texts on some flags, layered behind the three letters. These typographical aggregates vary in weight, according to the countries’ participation in the various Giec-IPCC reports, and indicate an informational space to be explored. The spectators in front of this mobile can indeed interact with it, with their smartphone, via a dedicated application. Having chosen a country, a flag, they explore this information by navigating the typographic space. The information revealed through these interactions varies according to the filters used in the Giec-IPCC database (report / role / country / chapter participation / working group / discipline / type of institutions / theme). By grasping this information and adopting a country’s point of view, the acting spectators become temporary representatives of their chosen countries, in the eyes of all: the interactive representation of their individual smartphone screen is reproduced on the flag assigned to them in real time. Caught between the actions of the participants and subjected to the slightest air draught, between the mobile phones and the mobile sculpture, this information tries to mobilize us through a singular as well as collective aesthetic experience.

Mobilisation
Sciences Po, Paris, October 2015
Vidéo - 2mn 16s - High band request
Images and editing: Juliette Angotti

To download this image in HD (Tiff), click here

Mobilisation
Sciences Po, Paris, October 2015
Photographs: Samuel Bianchini