17 Jun 2011

Discontrol Party at La Gaîté lyrique, Paris, by Samuel Bianchini (EnsadLab / DRii)

Discontrol Party, a highly visible public experiment

Discontrol Party is a dispositif which brings together two worlds: that of state-of-the-art surveillance techniques and that of partying. The dancefloor/live music venue/performance space will appear in the dual spotlight of a partying event and a data-driven control and surveillance system (computer vision, RFID, recording by smartphones, etc.) The main space of the Gaîté Lyrique becomes for the space of one evening a night-club set up as a control room: far from light effects or other VJing, the participants, while partying, are confronted by multiple visualizations of the information technology system which observes them and seeks to analyze their behavior.
Like a game presented to a focus group or a large scale Beta-testing, the challenge is launched: Can partying outplay the system? Lead it into a confusion which escapes it? Cause breakdown? Create a bug in the system? Because here, you are invited to a party where the 'monitoring' by the dispositif on which you are acting is openly visible: the mappings and the listings of movements and behaviors, the attempts at interpretation, the raw images from the surveillance cameras, those same images transformed for and through aic analysis, the representation of the activities of the information technology systems and, further, the consequences of these activities in the virtual space of Second Life and the reciprocal infiltration of this universe into the party.

Surveillance and partying: if these worlds seem entirely opposed on all fronts, they both however are based on group - or even crowd - activities. But the former, most frequently destined for public spaces, focuses primarily on ordered crowd movements: a flow of persons, a line or waiting room, a boarding platform, etc. The rapid, disordered and even sometimes fusional movements of partying are at the limits of compatibility with the detection, tracking and aim to individually identify of the increasingly aized dispositifs of surveillance and control: recognition of shapes, individuals, behaviors, traceability... In provoking their confrontation and possible overrunning of one world by the other, this prospective dispositif could reconnect with primitive traits of some of our oldest rituals: partying, celebrating, group celebration.

The musicians invited to incarnate the dispositif Discontrol Party are the evolutionary front-line of current electronic music: they are all experimenters, provocateurs. We can trust them to unleash a celebratory energy - with the verve and taste for danger of stunt riders - in the Discontrol dispositif: and to incite the spectators to do likewise!


Discontrol Party, credits
Discontrol Party
Interactive Party Dispositif, 2009-2011
Samuel Bianchini

Project developed as part of the research project 'Large Group Interaction' at EnsadLab/DRii, laboratory of the National School of Decorative Arts, Paris with the support of the Cap Digital business cluster and of the Ile-de-France region within the framework of the program Futur en Seine 2011 in partnership with the Gaîté Lyrique

in collaboration with the Calhiste laboratory of the University of Valenciennes the European Institute of the Sciences of Humanity and Society (MESHS-CNRS) – Lille and the Espace Pasolini - International Theatre of Valenciennes as part of the research project Praticables (ANR-08-CREA-063) supported by the National Research Agency

Music programming: Sylvie Astié (Dokidoki)
Friday 24 June: Schlachthofbronx; Ceephax Acid Crew; Absolute Body Control; Errorsmith; DJ Krikor
Saturday 25 June: Captain Ahab; Covox; Bass Jog (DJ Elephant Power + FX.Randomiz); Nero's Day at Disneyland; DJ Krikor

Environmental visualization software (KetchupAddict): Oussama Mubarak in collaboration with Tomek Jarolim and a contribution by Marie-Julie Bourgeois
Embedded RFID-UWB capture: Xavier Boissarie et Jonathan Tanant (Orbe) with technology and partnership of the company Ubisense
Video device (artistic collaboration and engineering): Antoine Villeret and Keyvane Alinaghi
Technical consultancy: Cyrille Henry

In partnership with Philips

On 'Second Life', teleperformance Disorder Screen Control: Lucile Haute, Claire Sistach, Alain Barthélémy and Frédérick Thomson with the support of EnsadLab/EN-ER and for the hosting on Second Life Metalab 3D- ARTESI île-de-France.

Design of RFID accessories: Claire Bonardot, Ornella Coffi, Cécile Gay, Jennifer Hugot, Pauline Jamilloux, Laure Pétré, Valentine Rosi, Chloé Severyns, Alice Topart, students in Textile & Texture Design and Fashion Design at the National School of Decorative Arts.

Thanks to the Progis company and to the Francophone Library.

Laboratory of the National School of Decorative Arts (EnsadLab)
The School's EnsadLab research laboratory, physically situated within the School, provides a specific conceptual and research axis in the domaines of creation and innovation, identified or emerging, in relation with social, economic, technological, political, industrial and cultural contexts in the contemporary world.
Combining research and training 'in research and through research', in preparation for a third cycle at doctoral level, EnsadLab currently consists of a dozen research programs covering the fields of art and design, graphics and typography, design of services, objects or spaces, interactive installations, virtual spaces, new materials, mobility...
These programs are directed by research professors, faculty members and professionals with the highest levels of expertise. Each program involves a number of research students (around five per program), French and international, selected by the school, all of whom hold at least a Master's degree – and some being doctoral students - generally from EnsadLab partner research institutions (around 50 student researchers and 20 faculty members, researchers and well-known professionals).

Samuel Bianchini, principal author and project coordinator
Samuel Bianchini is an artist and professor-researcher (lecturer) at the University of Valenciennes and at EnsadLab, the research laboratory of the National School of Decorative Arts (Paris) for whom he coordinates the Drii (Relational Dispositives: interactive installations) research program. After defending his doctoral thesis at the Palais de Tokyo with a solo exhibition, he is currently a member of the Calhiste laboratory (University of Valenciennes) and associated with the Citu laboratory (University of Paris 8). He is scientific leader and coordinator of the research project 'Practicable. The Work of Art as Dispositif: Setting the Stage for Audience Participation' supported by the French Research Agency (ANR).

Samuel Bianchini lives and works in Paris. He shows regularly in France and abroad. Exhibitions have included, recently, institutions such as Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Jeu de Paume in Paris, Laboratoria in Moscow, Jozsa Gallery in Brussels, Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art. His work investigates the impact of technology on modes of representation, on our new forms of aesthetic experiences and our socio-political organizations. To bring his projects to fruition, he collaborates with scientists and technology research centers. In tight correlation with his artistic practice, Samuel Bianchini has undertaken theoretical work that has been published by the Centre Pompidou, Jean-Michel Place, MIT Press, Analogues, Burozoïque, Hermes and Les presses du réel.

He is represented by the Ilan Engel Gallery (Paris).

Website:
www.dispotheque.org
drii.ensad.fr