JOUR FIXE with Valérie Pihet

EXPERIMENTS ON ARTS AND POLITICS

 

Founded by Bruno Latour at Sciences Po (Paris), the master program of experiments on arts and politics is an innovative pluridisciplinary program, which articulates the social sciences, the arts and politics. This program, directly inspired by the exhibition “Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy” (ZKM, 2005), is based on key notions of experimentation and inquiry to imagine pragmatic mechanisms that combine arts’ and social sciences’ practices. The task is to investigate, on practical concerns, the creation of a space that is both public and shared, yet still the locus of necessarily controversial issues. This year is the pilot year of the program. The presentation will focus on the background of the project and its first steps, trying to define what could be "political arts" today.

 

Valérie Pihet has been the assistant of Bruno Latour from 2002 to 2005. She was partly in charge of the coordination of the exhibition "Iconoclash. Beyond the image wars in science, religion and art” (ZKM, 2002), in addition she was in charge of the coordination and the setting-up of the exhibition "Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy" (ZKM, 2005). From 2005 to 2007, she developed collaborations with structures crossing arts and new medias, and with various artists and scientists (Pierre Huyghe, Adam Lowe, Thierry Fournier, Luc Boltanski). At the end of 2007, she joined Bruno Latour in Sciences Po, who was nominated Vice President for research. From 2007 to 2010, she was the project manager for the implementation of the médialab in Sciences Po. The médialab is a laboratory of digital resources, whose purpose is to contribute to the renewal of the research in social sciences, as well in its sources, its working methods, as in its manner to deal with its objects. Since 2011, she is the Executive Director of the Master of Experiments on Arts and Politics in Sciences Po.

 

Sciences Po School of Political Arts

 

 "Jour Fixe concept"