An EXPERIMENTA 2020 residency within the framework of the Vertigo/STARTS European call for project that puts forward a new soft material using embedded systems.

Research
The aim is to create an art installation using e-material developed during the DEAN project at CEA Grenoble. The material is a new type of polymer able to change its form according to relatively slight changes in temperature.

The new material invented by Liten is self-repairing, reversible, conformable, can be sticky, adhesive and malleable depending on the temperature. The challenging part is for it to work at room temperature.

The art installation by the TOAST Collectif will enquire into the human-material relationship. They will not only build a structure with a flexible ceiling made of this e-material but also interact with it via gestures from the audience.

Artists and researchers will present their research at the MIDI MINATEC in Grenoble on 8th March 2019. 

DURING THE RESIDENCY
The TOAST team, in residence at the Atelier Arts Sciences, is starting its third work session on the SPELAION project, using YUPI, the innovative material developed by Philippe Coronel. During the previous work sessions, the idea was to create an interactive ceiling based on YUPI. Now, the collective has chosen to explore its deformational properties in a transversal way. The objective is to favour a bottom-up creative process to be surprised by this material with its curious behaviour. This reflection will lead the team to question the creative process as an artistic object.

PRÉSENTATION À EXPERIMENTA
The SPELAION residency ended with the presentation at EXPERIMENTA 20 of the device created by Félix Cote and Benjamin Mozart, now called ALFRED
This work is as much the result of the exploration of this new material as it is of a long reflection on technological inventions and artistic research.

Presentation
To what extent are humans capable of measuring the challenges and impacts of technological innovations? Are we stuck in an eternal cycle in which each innovation brings with it new problems?
In view of the environmental issues at stake, this question is crucial. For example, the services provided by plastic, and our difficulty in managing its life cycle! With the installation Alfred, the TOAST collective has taken up these questions. Alfred is the result of research carried out with the CEA Liten laboratory on an innovative reconfigurable material, capable of changing state according to variations in temperature, which would offer an alternative to the current model of plastic production and management.

The artsites were then invited at the end of February by IRCAM to the Vertigo Days, the latest gathering of VERTiGO project leaders at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

logo_starts.jpg