art and darwin colloquium marseille france october 2009

October 22/23/24

Colloquium organized by MIM and in partnership with IMéRA, LEONARDO/Olats, Alphabetville and ZINC-ECM Since its publication, Darwin's Origin of the Species, has been widely debated in its cultural context. In this colloquium we wish to re examine cultural activity and the arts in the context of the Theory of Evolution as it is understood today. We solicit proposed papers from scientists, artists and composers, scholars in the humanities and social sciences. Invited Speakers Include: Jean-Pierre Changeux in his book "Raison et Plaisir " (Reason and pleasure) published in 1994 by Odile Jacob suggested a Darwinian theory of pictorial creation and of the way paintings are perceived. The brain of an artist creates shapes, colors, gestures, etc.and only survive those shapes etc which can enter long-term memory. This combination of chance and survival are characteristic of a Darwinian theory. Those elements which survive are called memes. The memes of an artist constitute his style…when they are shared by several artists they constitute an artistic movement… Another approach is espoused by Dominique Lestel who argues that cultural activity is not specific to humans but emerges progressively during the evolution of life forms. In books such as Les origines animales de la culture, Flammarion, 2001 - L'animal singulier, Seuil 2004 he examines the origins, nature and evolutionary effects of cultural activity in non humans. Another evolutionary theory of artistic creation has been developed by Pierre Mounoud and Jacques Mandelbrojt who analysed artistic creation with the concepts of assimilation and accommodation introduced by Piaget both to describe the evolution of living organisms in their environment and the evolution of science. MIM has been developing for several years research on the shortest element of music able to transmit a meaning such an element is called a UST (Semantic Time Unit). A piece of music can in general be analysed as a succession of such units, each one lasting a few seconds.A composer usually has preference for certain USTs which he uses in his compositions.USTs can be considered as musical memes . Several composers and members of MIM will present including: Marcel Fremiot, composer and musicologist, Martine Timsit-Berthier, psychophysiologist, Philippe Bootz (poet, specialized in Hypermedia, Maitre de Conference University of Paris 8). Frank Dufour (Member of MIM, Assistant Professor at the Sound Design Department of the University of Texas, Dallas USA)  Further details on the symposium can be found at http://www.labo-mim.org Scientific Committee : Jacques Mandelbrojt, physicien-théoricien, plasticien, MIM Roger Malina, directeur de recherche CNRS (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille), rédcteur en chef de la revue Leonardo Emmanuel Girard-Reydet, IMéRA Marcel Formosa, compositeur, MIM Marcel Frémiot, compositeur, musicologue, MIM

 

If you are interested in attending the colloqium please contact me.
Roger Malina