On Wednesday, September 7th and 14th, between 10 am and 7 pm, Thierry Fournier, J. Emil Sennewald and the research group Displays – EnsadLab, EnsAD research Laboratory, Paris, invite you to take part in the discussions: “What do we expect of exhibitions?” as part of the international workshop-conference Versions which will be held at the Maison Populaire de Montreuil.

What becomes of the exhibition, especially in the context of post-digital cultures?Versions, which will take place over the course of two weeks (Sept 5th - 16th), is an international practice, debate and critique workshop-conference to experiment and discuss exhibition forms. It is organized by the Displays research group led by Thierry Fournier and J. Emil Sennewald at EnsadLab, research laboratory of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris – which addresses the exhibition itself as a research situation.

Unlike a curatorial approach starting from a given project to organize works, Versions will take as its starting point suggestions made by stakeholders themselves, in order to reveal an experimentation of the exhibition’s “conditions of possibility”. Participants will work in groups of three for three days: two workshop days and one day of public debates. The process will be documented in real time and a publication will be edited after the event, in late 2016.

Fourteen guests will occupy a single space to conduct experiments in situ, and participate in public meetings and demonstrations: Martin John Callanan, artist, Eli Commins, artist, coordinator for digital policy at French Culture Ministry, Jean Cristofol, philosopher and teacher-researcher at Ecole Supérieure d’Art d’Aix en Provence, Milad Doueihi, historian and chairman for Digital humanities at University Paris-Sorbonne, Laura Gozlan, artist, Yuk Hui, philosopher, associated researcher at the Center for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Jan Kopp, artist, teacher (Esacm Clermont-Ferrand), Claire Malrieux, artist, teacher (Ensci, Beaux-arts Hauts-de France) and researcher at EnsadLab, Guilhem Pratz, director and producer, Gaïaland, Mathilde Roman, art critic, curator and teacher-researcher at Pavillon Bosio, Ecole supérieure d’Art de Monaco, Véronique Souben, curator and head of FRAC Haute-Normandie, Ann Stouvenel, curator and head for visual arts at Mains d’Å’uvres, Pau Waelder, art critic and curator, Marion Zilio, art critic, curator and head of Young International Artists art fair. This workshop will be held at Maison Populaire de Montreuil, in dialogue with the venue’s team and with Vladimir Demoule and Marie Koch, the 2016 season exhibition curators.We would be delighted if you would consider your participation in this workshop conference’s public meetings on Wednesdays, September 7th and 16th, between 10 am and 7pm. You are cordially invited to weigh in on what you expect of exhibitions today. Please note: your RSVP is required at displays@ensad.fr

More info about Displays and the participants: www.displays.ensadlab.fr
Maison Populaire de Montreuil, 9 bis rue Dombasle 93100 Montreuil, France: map
EnsadLab: www.ensadlab.fr

An event co-organized by the Displays research group, EnsadLab Research Laboratory, coordinated by Thierry Fournier (artist and curator, EnsadLab, Endsad Nancy) and J. Emil Sennewald (art critic and journalist, Esacm, EnsadLab) and the ICCA Labex. EnsadLab / Displays researchers: Gaspard Bébié-Valérian, Thomas Cheneseau, Dorian Reunkrilerk, associated researcher Pauline Gourlet (designer and postgraduate Université Paris 8) and Rahaf Demaskhi (artiste et doctorante University Rennes 2). Thanks to Annie Agopian, Floriane Benjamin, Marie Koch, Vladimir Demoule and the Maison Populaire de Montreuil team.

The Bank of England has announced the winner of its first data visualisation competition.
The competition, launched as part of the Bank’s One Bank Research Agenda, asked competitors to create a novel or insightful visual representation of Bank data sets that were made publicly available for the first time.
The winning entry from Cath Sleeman, showed an interactive web based visualisation of “Recessions and Recoveries”. This visualisation explored how the UK’s most recent recession, and subsequent recovery, compared to recessions in other countries and to previous recessions in the UK. She was awarded a £5000 prize.

All the shortlisted entries can be seen on the Bank’s website.

The announcement was made as part of a finalists’ day at which shortlisted entrants presented their visualisation to a panel including Chief Economist, Andy Haldane; Chairman of the NATO Research Task Group on visual analytics, Margaret Varga; Artist and author of Data Soliloquies, Martin Callanan; and Advanced Analytics Analyst, Lyndsey Pereira-Brereton.

Deputy Governor, Ben Broadbent, announced the winner. He said:
“The calibre of entrants to this competition has been extremely high. The original and creative use of our data – which we’ve made available to the public for the first time – has been inspiring as well as illuminating. I’d like to congratulate all those who entered the competition.

We launched this competition as a way of opening the Bank up to the broader research community. The high quality of the submissions received demonstrates the exciting new possibilities in the field of data visualisation.

Congratulations to Cath Sleeman on the outstanding use of our three centuries of macroeconomic data. It provided a fascinating perspective on the pattern of economic cycles in the UK and other countries.”

Cath Sleeman said:
“I entered the Bank’s data visualisation competition because I really enjoy analysing and visualising new and interesting data sets. My entry aims to contextualise the UK’s recent recession, by comparing it to recessions in other countries and to past recessions in the UK. I was surprised by the way in which the recent recession resembles a recession that took place one hundred years earlier, in 1908. The 1908 recession triggered a similar sized fall in GDP and was also accompanied by a weak recovery in productivity. I am extremely grateful to the Bank for running the competition. It was great to meet the other finalists and to learn more about the Bank’s Advanced Analytics unit.”

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/news/2015/054.pdf