Leading institution: Université Paris 8
Project leader: Dork Zabunyan, Paris 8 University (ESTCA Laboratory) & Paul Sztulman, Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD)
Applicant at HEAD – Genève: Christophe Kihm
Financing: ArTeC (Ecole Universitaire de Recherche)
website
Dissemination: Exhibition and publication
ArTeC explores new links between arts, humanities, sciences and techniques, between the physical space and the digital data space, the artistic forms and their mediations. The aim is to develop collaborative and located projects at the crossroads of disciplines and corpus, to confront scientific methodologies and formats with the devices of artistic creation.
The "Politics of Distraction" project wishes to examine a crucial notion within modern capitalist societies, disliked in the cultural field and yet more complex than its denunciation suggests: that of distraction. We would like to do this from a historical and theoretical point of view as well as by mobilizing different artistic practices: cinema, music, architecture, comics, but also the art of garden and amusement parks. or the video game.
Starting from the meaning of the word "distraction" in the avant-gardes of the 1920s and 1930s, and by examining the legacy today, two main orientations will be followed: on the one hand, by considering distraction as a specific mode of attention, by exploring the sensible worlds corresponding to the variety of perceptions it favours: floating attention, distracted listening, peripheral visions, etc.
On the other hand, by analyzing how artistic productions in their compositions work with these various forms of distracted experience, in order to reveal their share of alienation or, conversely, to transform them into a dynamic of emancipation.