IMPEC 2024 Conference > Call for papers

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•  Call in English
•  Convocatoria en español
•  Chamada en portugues
•  Temario in italiano
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 We would like to thank Joséphine Rémon, Paul Pouzergues, Myrna Garcetti Ribeiro, Marco Cappellini and Jörg Eschenauer for the various translations.

There are many definitions of creativity, and the concept itself remains the subject of debate and even controversy (Bonnardel, Girandola, Bonetto and Lubart, 2023). Corazza and Lubart's dynamic and contextualised definition is the following: "Creativity is a phenomenon rooted in a context, which requires potential originality and effectiveness" (2021: 5). Creativity can be broken down into, one the one hand, major creative activities with a strong impact on our society and, on the other hand, more common creative activities, with a continuum between the two (Bonnardel and Lubart, 2019). Finally, creativity leads to innovations, defined by the Oslo Manual (2018) as "a new or improved product or process (or combination of both) that differs significantly from previous products or processes within a system and has been made available to potential users (product) or implemented by the system (process)". These innovations can sometimes be confronted with the boundaries of ethics, understood as “a continuous, evolving process of reflection, informed by the history of thought and linked to a culture, which identifies and questions values and standards, and highlights any conflicts between them, in order to inform individual or collective choices". (CNPEN, 2021).

The upcoming conference will look more specifically at the impact or disruptive nature of information and communication technologies on interaction practices and uses, and their relationship to innovation and creativity. This relationship is often overlooked, not investigated thoroughly enough or taken for granted. Creativity in online exchanges can be studied through new practices and habits in interaction. These studies consider communicative affordances, interactional artefacts and the normative structures of interaction when mediated by a technical object (Develotte et al., 2011: 18). The interactionist perspective allows us to consider innovation and creativity in their historicity and process, through ethics and norms, in their divergent or convergent aspects.

Huyghe (2017) reminds us that we live in a world where innovation is economically systematised, that “the modern world has adopted technical advance as a management principle” (p.134) and that these technical advancements are “factors of existence” that shape ways of being in the world and hence practices (p. 136-7). 

Since the COVID crisis, teleworking has become widespread among a significant proportion of the population (in February 2022, 27% of employees were teleworking, compared with 4% in 2019, according to the DARES survey). As a result, remote communication applications (videoconferencing, instant messaging, streaming) have been used on a massive scale by untrained and unwilling users. While the study of computer-mediated communication (Herring, 1996) is not new, multimodal interactions have never been as widespread as they have been following the limitations imposed by the global pandemic. However, remote communications are conducive to misunderstandings for untrained, reticent audiences in an emergency context. The study of measures for preserving remote workers’ health and supporting their performance highlights that "the consequences of remote work on organisational regulation, working conditions, commitment, well-being, and even on managerial tools or postures, are diverse, varied and sometimes contradictory" (Chênevert et al. 2023, p. 16).

More broadly, artistic and creative work can be considered as a result not of innovations themselves or a technical shift, but of a process of "discovery" of the "possibilities of this shift in the sense paying attention to the unused possibilities of a device" (Huyghe, 2017: 136). Pierre-Damien Huyghe (2022) thus draws a distinction between a logic of innovation that is specific to our capitalist world and that enables technical devices to be produced according to a market logic of expanding what is economically profitable for society, and a logic of invention that requires designers, artists and DIY enthusiasts to be attentive to the potential of devices beyond their initial expectations, in other words "a work of awakening - attentive, active, creative, experimental and experiential - to their as yet unsuspected possibilities" (Citton, 2023).

IMPEC 2024 proposes three complementary themes, which can be taken up by various fields and methodological protocols: 

A) The world of work: collectives, risks, inequalities and ethical management

Multimodal interactions are at the heart of professional socialisation processes (Saks and Gruman, 2021) and work organisation, particularly at the collaborative level (Benedetto-Meyer, 2023). Telework and its management can be a source of social, psychological, physical, organisational or professional isolation, and therefore deleterious in the definition and content of tasks, work rhythms, the team and finally the organisation (Chênevert et al., 2023). Unprecedented attentional commitment (El Hachani, Grassin, Rémon, Vincent, 2022) is required for collaboration; similarly, adaptability and collective intelligence strategies are expected in the face of digital bugs and interactional failures specific to remote communication (Ibnelkaïd & Vincent, 2022). However, innovation and creativity are closely linked to perceived usefulness and legitimacy in work collectives (Alter, 2005). The effects and changes of these new work arrangements on work collectives, innovation and the creativity that underpins it, can be studied through interaction rites (Goffman, 1967), interpersonal relations and social relationships (Bidart, 2021) as well as the psychosocial risks incurred at work (Vayre, 2019).

Proposals can tackle questions such as:

–       How have post-covid work routines been reconfigured? How are employers and their management dealing with inequalities in access to teleworking or physical workspace?

–       How can innovative and ethical training be offered to meet the challenges of these multimodal interactions at work?

–       How do professionals cope, whatever their level of qualification, when they find themselves faced with demands for interaction via screens, including artificial intelligence, now accessible to a greater number of organisations?

–       What space does multimodal screen-based communication leave for autonomy at work, creativity and socialisation within groups? 

–       How can digital educational technologies be used in teaching, in particular, to support students and encourage their success, critical thinking and creativity?

B) Artistic practice 

Screens and digital technologies have gradually been integrated into various artistic practices, opening the way to art forms with porous boundaries, considering "digital creations" as "experiments" (Leleu-Merviel, 2011). These heterogeneous and fragmented forms borrow from the graphic and visual arts (Net Art; graphic design; prompt art), literature (generative, hypertextual, sound poetry, etc.), cinema, the performing arts (theatre, performance), and native digital forms, right down to the algorithms themselves (Paveau, 2017) when the code is used as an artistic language (Saemmer, 2007). This protean dimension of the digital work, which is collaborative if only because the writing of the code is often delegated, raises questions about the status of the author, even more so now that AI is emerging as an agent of creativity.  On theatre stages, technologies "are integrated not only into the scenic device, but also into the dramaturgy, the choreography, in short into the process of writing the work" (Quinz, 2002: 12). With covid, online experiences of live performance have multiplied (Roques, 2020). Videoconferencing and social networks have become experimental laboratories and may have opened up "a new hybrid theatrical form, or even a new artistic genre, or at least a possible new scene" (Dieuzayde and Della Noce, 2020: 52). We will be asking what digital technology and screens are doing to performance and reception. For Leeker et al (2017), digital cultures are performative cultures, and offer new affordances for performative practices and interventions, in the light of “techno-social performativity”. Within performance studies, DeLahunta et al (2017) explore, for example, the role of the digital in documenting and transmitting movement ideas. In the specific context of practices taking place within temporal sequences, the link between choreographic objects and digital objects needs to be questioned. Schipper (2017) for instance xplores the figure of the wanderer as co-producer or performative spectator.

Proposals can tackle questions such as:

–       What forms and aesthetics do digital works create? How do the performing arts play with digital screens?

–       What do screens do to performance and reception?

–       How does the creativity of the digital "performative body" (Bourassa and Poissant, 2013) enter into dialogue with the creativity of the physiological body?

–       What can synthetic creativity teach us about embodied creativity?

–       How should we approach these artistic and cultural practices in research? 

–       How can literature, or rather digital writing, be editorialized?

–       What creative latitude do researchers have when it comes to publishing research results? (Develotte et al. 2021)

–       What kind of academic training can be provided for these new creative forms? What courses can be offered? With what type of assessement?

An exhibition space, in Lyon and online, will enable researchers/creators to exhibit a piece of art. The artist will write an accompanying brief to explain the links between their research and their creation, as well as the links with IMPEC 2024.

C) Ethics and ecology

Studies raising ethical questions have emerged in various fields, such as law (Pasquale, 2015), anthropology (Turkle, 2007) and education sciences (Collin et al., 2022). Reflexive ethics involve a tension between the design and use of screens and the principles of social organisation, such as humanism (CNPEN, 2021) or democracy (Roelens, 2023). These studies shed light on neglected areas and can document decision-making. Normative ethics deal with more action-oriented aspects, with the application of principles to participatory political action, for example (Bernholtz et al., 2021). Finally, recent thinking on digital technology has raised questions about the ecological impact of some technologies.

The proposals can tackle questions such as:

–       How up-to-date are techno-critical approaches in the face of current technological innovations?

–       What are the possible tensions between screen-mediated interaction routines and ethical positions?

–       What uses of screens are compatible with ethical and ecological positions?

–       How can we take advantage of digital innovations in the educational context to make them our own? How can we support students to encourage their success, critical thinking and creativity?

–       What transitions will the digital transformation of cultural and artistic practices bring about in the arts market and in digital publishing?

–       How can we reconcile the creative arts market, governed by economic logic, with ecological and ethical issues?

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Proposal format

The four possible formats are :

• Oral presentation
• Symposia
• Workshops
• Posters

In French (with slides in English), English (with slides in French), Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or German (with slides in French or English).

Follow this link for the detailed formats https://impec.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/93

The deadline is 08 october january 31th 2024.

Proposals will be uploaded on the conference website: https://impec.sciencesconf.org/submission/submit

Contact email : groupe.impec@gmail.com

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References :

Alter, N. (2005). L’innovation ordinaire. Paris : PUF.

Benedetto-Meyer, M. (2023).  Que deviennent les collectifs en télétravail ? Une analyse par l’usage des outils collaboratifs, SociologieS [En ligne], Dossiers, mis en ligne le 01 mai 2023, consulté le 09 juillet 2023. DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/sociologies.20615

Bidart, C. (2021). « Que fait la crise aux relations interpersonnelles et aux ressorts des liens ? ». Nicolas Mariot, Pierre Mercklé, Anton Perdoncin. Personne ne bouge! Une enquête sur le confinement du printemps 2020, UGA editions, p.173-181, 978-2-37747-243-7.

Bonnardel, N., Girandola, F., Bonetto, E., & Lubart, T. (2023). La créativité en situations : Théories et applications. Dunod.

Bourassa, R. & Poissant, L. (dir.) (2013). Personnage virtuel et corps performatif. Effets de présence. Presses de l’Université du Québec.

Citton, Y. (2023). Bienveillance. In Y. Citton, M. Lechner, & A. Masure (Éds.), Angles morts du numérique ubiquitaire : Glossaire critique et amoureux (p. 37‑39). Presses du réel.

Corazza, G. E., & Lubart, T. (2020). Intelligence and creativity: Mapping constructs on the space-time continuum. Journal of Intelligence, 9(1), 1.

Develotte, C., Kern, R. G., & Lamy, M.-N. (Éds.). (2011). Décrire la conversation en ligne. Le face à face distanciel. ENS Editions.

Develotte, C., Bouquain, A., Tatiana, C., Combe, C., Domanchin, M., El Hachani, M., Furnon, D., Grassin, J.-F., Ibnelkaïd, S., Lascar, J., Rémon, J. & Vincent, C. (2021). Fabrique de l’interaction parmi les écrans: formes de présences en recherche et en formation. Ateliers [Sens public]. http://ateliers.sens-public.org/fabrique-de-l-interaction-parmi-les-ecrans/ .

DeLahunta, S, Jenett, F. (2017). Making digital choreographic objects interrelate. A focus on coding practices. In: Martina Leeker, Imanuel Schipper, Timon Beyes (Hg.): Performing the Digital. Performativity and Performance Studies inDigital Cultures. Bielefeld: transcript 2017, S. 63–79. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/2079.

Dieuzayde, L.  & Della Noce, E. (2020). « La visioconférence comme scène transmédiale » dans Incertains regards. Cahiers dramaturgiques.

El Hachani, M., Grassin, J.-F., Rémon, J. & Vincent, C. (2021) “Affordances attentionnelles dans un séminaire instrumenté”. Fabrique de l’interaction parmi les écrans : formes de présences en recherche et en formation. Editions Ateliers de sens public, Montréal, Canada.

Herring, S. C. (Ed.). (1996). Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Pragmatics and Beyond series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Huyghe, P.-D. (2022). Numérique : La tentation du service. Éditions B42.

Ibnelkaïd, S. & Vincent, C. (2021). “Les bugs numériques et ratés interactionnels au service d’une intelligence collective”. Fabrique de l’interaction parmi les écrans : formes de présences en recherche et en formation, Editions Ateliers de sens public, Montréal, Canada.

Leeker, M., Schipper, I. & Beyes, T. (2016). "Performativity, performance studies and digital cultures". Performing the Digital: Performance Studies and Performances in Digital Cultures, edited by Timon Beyes, Martina Leeker and Imanuel Schipper, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, pp. 9-18. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839433553-001

OCDE/Eurostat (2019), Manuel d’Oslo 2018 : Lignes directrices pour le recueil, la communication et l’utilisation des données sur l’innovation, 4ème édition, Mesurer les activités scientifiques, technologiques et d'innovation, Éditions OCDE, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/c76f1c7b-fr.

Paveau, M.-A. (2017). L'analyse du discours numérique. Dictionnaire des formes et des pratiques. Hermann.

Quinz, E. (2002) « Digital performance, Editorial », Anomalie, Digital_arts, n° 2, Bolzano (Italie), Museo d'Arte Moderna.

Roques, S. (2020). « Entre dystopies et utopies artistiques : la création au temps du coronavirus ». Recherches & éducations. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/rechercheseducations/9993 .

Saemmer, A. (2007). Matières textuelles sur support numérique (Vol. 132). Université de Saint-Étienne.

Saks, A. M., & Gruman, J. A. (2021). How do you socialize newcomers during a pandemic? Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 14(1-2), 217-220.

Schipper, I. (2017). “From flâneur to co-producer. The performative spectator”. In: Martina Leeker, Imanuel Schipper, Timon Beyes (Hg.): Performing the Digital. Performativity and Performance Studies in Digital Cultures. Bielefeld: transcript 2017, S. 191–209. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/2133.