{"id":5326,"date":"2025-03-17T20:06:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T19:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hacnumedia.org\/pepr-iccare-creating-the-conditions-for-a-genuine-encounter-between-scientific-communities-and-cultural-actors\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T17:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:52:09","slug":"pepr-iccare-creating-the-conditions-for-a-genuine-encounter-between-scientific-communities-and-cultural-actors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hacnumedia.org\/en\/pepr-iccare-creating-the-conditions-for-a-genuine-encounter-between-scientific-communities-and-cultural-actors\/","title":{"rendered":"PEPR-ICCARE: \u201cCreating the conditions for a genuine encounter between scientific communities and cultural actors\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How can research support the cultural and creative industries in their digital transformation and in adapting to economic and social challenges? This is the central question of the ICCARE Cultural and Creative Industries research programme (PEPR-ICCARE), led by the CNRS and structured around seven research programmes<\/a>. Among them, HARMONIE aims to experiment with new meeting spaces to rethink the creation, production and dissemination of immersive technologies and artificial intelligence. Its launch event, held in Marseille in March 2025, stood out for its singular approach, blending discussion with experiential exploration.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The gathering took place at the newly opened LaboFriche<\/a>, in the heart of the Friche la Belle de Mai. Nearly one hundred researchers and ICC professionals responded to the invitation from PRISM (CNRS)<\/a>, the laboratory leading the HARMONIE <\/a>project. \u201cAs part of France 2030, our mission is to support\u2014through research\u2014the ICC sector in its transformation and in adapting to tomorrow\u2019s digital, economic and social challenges. We address academic actors in higher education and research, the Ministry of Culture, as well as cultural organisations, artists and creators”, explained Solveig Serre, CNRS research director and co-director of PEPR-ICCARE, in her opening remarks. <\/em>“, explained Solveig Serre, CNRS research director and co-director of PEPR-ICCARE<\/a>, in her opening remarks. With an ambitious six-year programme, the challenge lies in addressing the diversity of participants, the different scales of intervention and the differing temporalities between research and ICC. \u201cWe will have succeeded with the PEPR if we manage to create the conditions for a genuine encounter between scientific communities and cultural and creative actors,\u201d added Solveig Serre<\/a>. The same applies to immersive technologies and artificial intelligence, whose rapid rise has reshaped all creative sectors in a matter of months. \u201cHARMONIE seeks to identify the obstacles and limiting beliefs surrounding these technologies when applied to creation, to develop new methodologies and to design new tools. The goal is to support ICC professionals through this transition, and research has an essential role to play,\u201d explained Richard Kronland-Martinet<\/a>, CNRS research director and head of PRISM. <\/p>\n\n

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\u00a9 Ste\u0301phane Bailby<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

(Semantically) deconstructing the \u2018immersive\u2019 <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Digital technologies\u2014AR\/VR, spatialised sound, AI, real-time creation\u2014are now fully embedded in a wide range of artistic practices and creative sectors (gaming, film, audiovisual, performing arts, visual arts, music), with growing interest in \u201cimmersive creation,\u201d a term now central to the ICC. This phenomenon calls for critical analysis: What exactly are immersive technologies? What forms of creation do they enable? These questions were at the heart of the day\u2019s programme, co-designed and organised by the deletere laboratories<\/a>, based at the Couvent Levat in Marseille. \u201cWe wanted to go beyond the usual narratives around immersion by proposing a holistic experience: deconstructing the very notion of \u2018immersion\u2019 through reflection, then confronting it through sensory experience via performances and installations. A short-circuit approach where thought and perception feed each other, allowing audiences to experience immersion differently, beyond preconceived ideas<\/em>,\u201d explained Adelin Schweitzer<\/a>, founder of the deletere laboratories and an artist known for his iconoclastic XR practice. The round table \u201cImmersion\u2026 I Write Your Name\u201d brought together Marie Point (co-president of PXN <\/a>\/ Director of Dark Euphoria), Claire Chatelet <\/a>(associate professor in audiovisual and new media at the University of Montpellier), Jean-Marie Dallet (artist, curator and professor at the \u00c9cole des Arts de la Sorbonne) and Charles Ayats (artist and designer), to examine the polysemy of the term \u201cimmersive.\u201d \u201cThis word first appears in the 1970s, during the second wave of virtual reality. Since then, its use has intensified, especially as an adjective,\u201d noted Claire Chatelet. Like \u201cMetaverse\u201d or \u201cArtificial Intelligence,\u201d \u201cimmersive\u201d has become a generic, omnipresent term among artists, researchers and ICC professionals\u2014yet it covers extremely diverse realities. \u201cAn immersive experience is not necessarily technological,\u201d emphasised Marie Point, urging a more audience-centred approach: \u201cAre audiences placed in a physical or virtual environment? Are they encouraged to interact? With avatars? With other spectators?\u201dIf the use of a technological device does not suffice to define an experience as immersive, should we instead speak of technologies that construct immersion? In this light, generative AI could be considered an immersive tool \u201cby dynamically modifying narrative pathways, for instance in a film,\u201d explained Jean-Marie Dallet. Immersion also forms the basis of a new market, embodied by infrastructures like The Sphere in Las Vegas or cultural venues such as the Atelier des Lumi\u00e8res in Paris, noted Charles Ayats. <\/p>\n\n

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Transvision \u2013 Lucien Gaudion and Ga\u00ebtan Parseihian \u00a9 St\u00e9phane Bailby<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Experiencing immersion <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

After the discussions, it was time for experience. The afternoon offered participants a physical, sensory and intimate immersion through a selection of performances and installations by Marseille-based artists and collectives:#ALPHALOOP <\/a>by Adelin Schweitzer, Transvision <\/a>by Lucien Gaudion and Ga\u00ebtan Parseihian, EVENT by ELEVEN<\/a> (n+n Corsino), HITar <\/a>by Andrea Martelloni and Wonderland <\/a>by the deletere laboratories. These works explore a broad spectrum of immersive technologies: artificial intelligence, deep learning models, image generators, VR headsets, spatialised sound systems, and more. Each experience was paired with a mediation workshop designed to collect participants\u2019 reactions and fuel collective reflection on immersion and its implications. Christine Esclapez<\/a>, professor of Music and Musicology and member of PRISM\u2019s board and scientific committee, along with PhD candidates Agathe Mangialomini and M\u00e9lanie Egger, compiled these insights into a reflection report:<\/p>\n\n

\u201cFaced with the diversity of technological devices explored today, one constant seems to emerge: the return to the body as a fundamental anchor point. These devices make us perceive by bringing us back to our own bodies; they force us to be, to experience an embodied perspective of the self that allows us to rethink established categories in the face of the novelty of what we feel. Regardless of the complexity or identification of the technologies involved, the first reception invariably passes through sensation\u2014a body that feels before understanding\u2014only then questioning what is happening with a return to the intellect. As one participant noted after experiencing Transvision: \u201cIt\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve felt sound as material. The bodily stimulation caused by the vibrations disrupted my sensitivity so much that sound itself seemed like a physical \/ bodily stimulus.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n

Next, multimodal perception\u2014where multiple senses are activated\u2014invites an active reconstruction of the experience. One is no longer a passive receiver but situated in an in-between state: neither entirely spectator nor entirely oneself, but oscillating, with the body becoming mediator. This position requires a constant reframing of what is received, intellectually or sensorially. Our bodily landmarks renegotiate themselves when technology is added to our bodies, as expressed by a participant in #ALPHALOOP who felt both \u201cout of phase and synchronised with\u201d the work. This return to the body is all the stronger when the experience is disorienting. The more technology disrupts, the more it forces us to anchor ourselves in reality, to seek in our sensations a stable reference point, even if this means intellectualising them. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

When discussing immersion, it is essential not to confuse the immersive experience with the experience of immersive technology. The former belongs to the realm of the sensorial\u2014an engagement in which the relationships between perception and spatiality, between presence and representation, are reconfigured. The latter refers to the technical devices that frame and modulate the conditions of this experience. The mistake would be to reduce the immersive experience to its technological support, to believe that the mere sophistication of the device is enough to generate a sensorial experience. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

Yet technologies proliferate with increasing intensity. Virtual experiences multiply, algorithmic architectures grow more complex, while understanding does not keep pace. Far from being fully mastered objects, these technologies reveal an irreducible opacity\u2014even according to some engineers who admit that algorithmic behaviour sometimes eludes those who created them. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

This calls for a reconfiguration of the role of the humanities and social sciences. Beyond providing commentary or critical accompaniment, they form part of an archaeology of knowledge, as defined by Michel Foucault (The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1969): not a quest for origins but an illumination of the conditions of emergence and structuring of discourse. Applied to contemporary technologies, this approach interrogates not only their technical structures, but also the rationalities they generate, the distributions of the visible and the expressible they institute. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

We must therefore examine not only what these devices do but what they make us do: to thought, to perception, to modes of expression. Likewise, we must consider the transformations these technologies generate in aesthetic reception. This is not merely a technical issue, but a political one: the redistribution of forms of knowledge, the reconfiguration of regimes of visibility, and, more broadly, the inscription of the sensorial within the realm of the thinkable.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

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ALPHALOOP \u2013 Adelin Schweitzer \u00a9 St\u00e9phane Bailby<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Creating shared spaces <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

This day\u2014grounded in dialogue and experimentation\u2014illustrates PEPR-ICCARE\u2019s ambition to break down barriers between scientific research, innovation and artistic creation. To strengthen these bridges between scientific communities and cultural and creative actors, several initiatives have been designed: the PEPR-ICCARE \u201cacceleration days\u201d (the next HARMONIE meeting, \u201cMusic for Image and AI: Issues and Perspectives,<\/a>\u201d will take place on 27\u201328 March during the International Music & Cinema Festival), as well as ARIANE, a platform designed to facilitate encounters between research and professional communities. Its aim is to identify key contributors across France and foster synergies and joint projects. <\/p>\n\n

Adrien Cornelissen<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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