Research

My scientific background is the epistemology of the performing arts and digital technologies. Over the years, the focus has shifted from history and aesthetics (digital performances) to the question of the memory and historiography of theatre (theatre analytics). The evolution of the performing arts/digital tension can be summed up in three questions: What does digital offer to stage creation? What is the impact of digital technology on the documentation of the performing arts? What does digital tell us about theatre? These questions have emerged one after the other. One chapter does not close the other. The threads continue to be drawn simultaneously, enriching each other. My research fields include digital humanities, history and aesthetics of performing arts, art/science/technology relations, documentation, and preservation of digital heritage and new forms of publishing.

I work at the crossroads of art history, theatre studies, and media studies, collaborating with artists, developers, designers, and researchers. My research on performing arts and digital humanities is both theoretical (epistemology of methodologies and their impact on historiography and digital heritage) and applied (software design: Rekall and MemoRekall). This work is funded by Europe (Interreg projects), the Ministry of Culture, and many cultural institutions.


Mon parcours scientifique a pour objet l’épistémologie des arts de la scène et des technologies numériques. Au cours des années, la problématique se déplace de l’histoire et l’esthétique (les digital performances) vers la question de la mémoire et de l’historiographie du théâtre (les theatre analytics). On peut résumer l’évolution de la tension arts de la scène/numérique en trois questions : Qu’offre le numérique à la création scénique ? Quel est l’impact du numérique sur la documentation des arts de la scène ? Que nous apprend le numérique sur le théâtre ? Ces questions sont apparues successivement. Un chapitre ne clôt pas l’autre. Les fils continuent à être tirés simultanément, s’enrichissant mutuellement. Mes axes de recherche concernent les humanités numériques, l’histoire et l’esthétique des arts de la scène, les relations art/science/technologie, la documentation et la préservation du patrimoine numérique ainsi que les nouvelles formes d’édition.

Je travaille au croisement de l’histoire de l’art, des études théâtrales et des sciences de l’information et de la communication, collaborant avec des artistes, des développeurs, des designers et des chercheurs. Mes recherches sur les arts de la scène et les humanités numériques sont à la fois théoriques (épistémologie des méthodologies et de leur impact sur l’historiographie et le patrimoine numérique) et appliquées (conception de logiciels : Rekall et MemoRekall). Ces travaux sont financés par l’Europe (projets interreg), le ministère de la culture et de nombreuses institutions culturelles.


Categories

Theatre analytics : performing arts and digital humanities

The period 2016-2020 is marked by the definition of a new field of research, at the crossroads of digital humanities and theatre studies: Theatre Analytics. This epistemological reflection is developing as a result of the research program to which I contributed at UCLA: what can culture analytics, defined as the "data-driven analysis of culture," bring to theatre studies? ...
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Performing arts documentation & preservation

For the past ten years, I have devoted much of my research activity towards the analysis, documentation, and preservation of the performing arts in the context of born-digital heritage and big data ...
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History and aesthetics of digital performances

The history of the relationship between the performing arts and technology has yet to be written: many archives are not accessible, and the few attempts in this area, mostly centered on the Anglo-Saxon world, have many gaps. In my research, I attach particular importance to the study of techniques and the identification of public or private archive collections ...
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Experimental Publishing

After creating two journals on the performing arts and digital technologies (Patch) and on the relations between art, science, and business (Transdigital CookBook), I created in 2011 a publishing house, Subjectile, to explore the connections between paper and digital publishing ...
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Art, science & technology

Beyond digital performances, I am more generally interested in the relations between arts-sciences-technologies, especially from the perspective of media archaeology ...
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Research Projects

The digital traces of performing arts – HDR

In 2019, I defended my "habilitation à diriger des recherches" with Bruno Bachimont as a mentor. The dossier entitled "Performing arts and digital technologies: from digital performances to theatre analytics" is composed of three volumes: a memoir, a reasoned selection of works and an unpublished work, Memory of the Ephemeral: The Digital Traces of the Performing Arts. ...
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Distant reading & distant viewing of the Leonardo Journal

The Leonardo project looks at the mechanisms of interdisciplinary interactions between art and science in the Leonardo Journal (MIT Press), and their evolution from 1968 to the present day ...
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Sibmas working group for digital acquisition of institutional and personal theatre archives

Within the framework of SIBMAS (the International Association of Libraries, Museums, Archives, and Documentation Centres of the Performing Arts), I joined a new working group for digital acquisition of institutional and personal theatre archives in September 2019. Led by Anna Lawaetz (Royal Danish Library), it brings together Doug Reside (New York Public Library), Juliette Riandey (National Dance Centre), Rime Touil ...
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Art Zoyd studios, digitization and preservation plan of the music collection

Following the death of Gérard Hourbette, composer and director of Art Zoyd, in May 2018, the music creation center Art Zoyd Studio asked me to take scientific responsibility for the archiving, conservation, and transmission of its electroacoustic works. It concerns not only the pieces that were created but also those that will be the subject of future studio residencies ...
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Digital performances : an anthology

What are the concepts, the aesthetic and cultural aspects, the practices of digital performances? What is the history of these contemporary forms of performing arts? Who are the main actors? The characteristics? The anthology of digital performances will bring together the major texts in the field, from 1956 to 2006, from cybernetics to social networks ...
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Rewind

The Rewind Series brings together studies on major works and great figures in the history of contemporary theatre. A broad iconographic documentation, largely unpublished, forms the core of each work. Each work is published only in digital format, in French and English ...
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C2L3Play – Cross Border Living Labs

The objective of the Cross Border Living Labs (C2L3Play) project, supported by European Interreg funding, is to set up a network of cross-border living labs based on existing physical structures in the Hauts-de-France, Wallonia, and Flanders regions. The typical feature of a Living Lab is to bring together different profiles (researchers, designers, entrepreneurs, citizens) in the same place ...
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Adrien M & Claire B

The In Progress series, which I edit at Subjectile, presents the creative processes of contemporary artists. Each book is a half-open window on the studio, with texts and numerous iconographic documents, all of which shed light on and bear witness to the different stages leading to the creation of the works ...
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MemoRekall : a free and open source web app to annotate a video

MemoRekall is a free and open source webapp to explain and annotate a video. It was launched during the winter 2015-2016 with a new version in 2017. The main aim was to build a tool in order to explain the video-recordings of the performing arts. The videos are enhanced adding notes, documents or weblinks. The result is called a « ...
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Culture Analytics – Senior fellow at UCLA

I contributed from 2016 until 2018 as a senior fellow to the Culture Analytics long program at UCLA / IPAM. During more than 3 months, I've learned the very up to date digital humanities methodologies, working with 40 researchers from arts and humanities, computer science, and applied mathematics ...
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Cabarets de curiosité

The Cabarets de curiosités series gathers texts, portfolios, and artists' documents around a theme of the contemporary theatre scene from the festival organized by the Phénix, Valenciennes' national theatre scene. The latest volumes are also available in digital format (pdf and iPad) ...
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Rekall, an open-source environment for performing arts

Rekall is an open-source environment for documenting, analyzing the creative process, and facilitating the recovery of works. It is a functional software prototype that allows the documentation of performances by taking into account the creative process, the reception, and the different forms of a performance ...
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