Avoir Lieu * Take place

Our program aims at working on:

1/ IRL covid-compatible public reception facilities and devices with regard to health constraints (lower seating capacity, distance, ventilation, limitation of aerosolization and contact, wearing of mask, etc.). Whether it is a question of identifying specific arrangements that have already been implemented (drive concerts with spectators in cars, “criées” at the bottom of buildings, parades in closed streets with public on the balcony, etc.) or inventing new ones: their implementation is not easy yet and each time requires new negotiations with the authorities, specific contractual arrangements or precarious actions without authorizations: how to facilitate these procedures in the future?
We wish to collectively explore different facilities, devices or arrangements which will bounce back constructively on these constraints, and whose modalities could then be charted and proposed to the authorities to be officially validated as compatible with such crises (and constitute a kind of catalog / toolbox usable immediately in case of a new similar crisis).

2/ about the development of IRL/remote hybrid scenic works, being multi-channel, interactive and polymorphic works accessible simultaneously via different channels: IRL (near or far co-presence, fixed or mobile, direct or through store front windows, drive, etc.) and remote (via live video, applications, social networks, telephone audio, video game platforms, radio/webradio, web-based live performances, etc.). The objective is to strengthen the resilience of these works, while bringing together audiences with different communication habits and uses (especially young people) or with disabilities or geographically distant, and this while implementing real interactions with them. Particular attention will be given to low-tech solutions (for economic and ecological reasons) and to technical solutions that would help to free oneself as much as possible from the giants of the web.

The “Avoir Lieu” program is being structured since October 2020 in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

The main foreshadowing actions are being developed for spring 2021, in Clermont-Ferrand and Arcueil, with our first partners.

Other actions are currently being developed elsewhere in France and abroad (particularly in Romania) with other partners.

Certain actions, linked to the ongoing development of this website and other means of communication, will bring together people interested in our lines of research, from other territories, on broader actions. This is particularly the data collection that we will launch in March 2021, intended to identify and share initiatives corresponding to our two areas of work.

The real launch of the “Avoir Lieu” program will take place during the 2021/22 season and will take place over several years.

Nos deux axes de recherche et d’expérimentation se déploient autour de quatre types d’actions :

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• la collecte et la mise en commun d’informations relatives à des propositions artistiques et techniques liées à nos deux axes de recherche et d’expérimentation. Une base de données permettra ensuite l’accès libre et gratuit à ces différents éléments. Cette collecte débutera en mars 2021 avec la mise en ligne et la diffusion d’un formulaire à compléter.

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• la réflexion collective par des interactions en ligne mais aussi la mise en commun d’actualités, l’organisation de journées d’études en lien avec le milieu universitaire, ou encore de rencontres publiques donnant la paroles à des personnes partageant leur savoir, leurs compétences et leurs expériences au sujet des avancées concernant nos deux axes de recherche :

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• 1. les actions concrètes permettant de réduire les risques de transmission d’un virus respiratoire (circulation d’air, contact, etc.),
  2. les possibilités offertes aux équipes artistiques/techniques et aux équipes de médiation/communication par un canal en particulier (audio du téléphone, vitrines en boutiques, plateformes de jeux vidéo, live sur réseaux sociaux, etc.) ou par les interactions en multicanal.

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• l’organisation et la coordination de recherches pratiques en groupes tripartites comprenant des professionnel.le.s des domaines artistiques/techniques, médiation/communication et universitaires. En parallèle, principalement à Clermont-Ferrand et en Île-de-France (2 groupes de travail). En parallèle, animation d’un lien d’échange avec d’autres groupes indépendants qui travaillent sur des pistes communes.

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• la remontée des résultats de nos actions vers les autorités pour influencer les politiques culturelles et également aider à une meilleure prise en compte des réalités de terrain. Il s’agit notamment de la nécessité de faire valider officiellement certains dispositifs d’accueil public en présentiel comme « covid-compatibles », c’est-à-dire comme réduisant suffisamment le risque de transmission d’un virus respiratoire pour pouvoir être autorisés en cas de crise sanitaire similaire.

Preliminary actions (planned, update February 2021):

Program « Avoir Lieu » 2022 (under development):

Here are some of the values ​​that we want to carry through this program :

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• we consider as essential the possibility of sharing works in co-presence, and that even works entirely conceived for remote sharing could be enriched by inventing versions accessible via a so-called presential or « co-presential » channel;

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• If we are talking about a shift, we prefer to think in terms of a « remote shift » rather than a « digital shift », because non-digital (i.e. « non-Internet ») remote channels, such as telephone audio or radio waves, not only offer other possibilities for creation but are often more accessible to the greatest number of people. The health crisis has simply widened the perception of a real digital divide inherent in everyone’s ability to buy certain equipment, to use it or to access the necessary infrastructure;

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• hybridization is a concrete reality both in the interweaving of the different artistic disciplines within the works and between the skills of teams formerly thought of as operating in distinct fields : tools of the mediation and communication teams are becoming tools of creation. Cultural venues must therefore rethink their way of welcoming artistic and technical teams through the mobilization of new staff around the sharing of these new forms with the public.

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• the simple audiovisual retransmission of shows, concerts, exhibitions is a stopgap, it is not an enviable alternative for the future of sharing arts with an audience. On the one hand, the encouragement of public authorities to audiovisual capture, beyond the cost of the subsidies allocated to it, has a significant impact on the imagination of artistic and technical teams as to how to recover from the challenge. this crisis. On the other hand, one might wonder why professional live performance programmers really need more than wide-shot capture with decent sound and video quality, as well as is it possible to do it today with an amateur camera or a smartphone? Wouldn’t be more useful funds allocated to the development of forms also accessible through the creative use of sound and video ?

 

• we want to encourage the development of low-tech and no-code practices, making use of what already exists with creativity. The objective here is to limit the technological divide which reinforces the inequalities of means and access for artistic and technical teams as well as for cultural venues and audiences;

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• we believe that this change in the ways in which the arts are shared with the public can also be an opportunity to work on eco-responsible practices. Without giving ourselves the illusion of a possibility of zero impact, we are convinced that many levers exist and in particular that a development of non-digital distancing, or of less greedy digital, could participate in the collective effort that is needed.

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• when it comes to thinking about our flexibility in the health context, we believe it is essential to use the available scientific information ourselves and to define our thoughts and actions in relation to: the law, ethics and common sense. Legal decisions, whether prohibitions or authorisations, can and must be interpreted, margins of tolerance must sometimes be identified and seized, addditional precautions must sometimes accompany them

 

• we leave some space here for the writing of other points in the future.

In writing these calls, we wanted to open up food for thought for interested people to join us in different ways. If you have an idea for other forms of participation, please let us know at contact@lamargeheureuse.com

Progress and supports: the procedures related to the « Avoir Lieu » program were launched in October 2020.

• the actions of La Marge Heureuse have been supported for three years by  Anis Gras, le lieu de l’autre (Arcueil, 94) which will host in May 2021 a working session « Avoir Lieu » for its residents ;
• le compagnie La TraverScène, which has supported this initiative since its inception, provides its means of production, such as access to dedicated telephone numbers to host experiments by telephone ;
• the City of Clermont-Ferrand (63) via municipal equipment La Cour des Trois Coquins where part of the working sessions will take place ;
• the  Théâtre du Pélican team will involve groups of teenagers in this research in order to better understand their uses of social networks and other interaction platforms, as well as to think with them about the perspectives that this may open to live performance for the future;
• Le Tremplin is a municipal equipment of the City of Beaumont (63), helping to professionalize emerging artistic and technical teams and supporting amateur practices in current music. Its team is joining forces with La Marge Heureuse to develop experimentation on the axes of the « AVOIR LIEU » program in the field of contemporary music, both in terms of creation, distribution and the use of communication tools. and mediation around and for shared concert times.
• le collectif Zaoum – Espace d’artistes, including a hospital psychiatrist and several artists who regularly work in hospitals, support this research: devices, spaces, hospital habitus, (therapeutic?) effects … in order that everyone finds their (right) place for sharing with others: patients, healthcare teams, artists;
• other cultural venues will support this research program by hosting artistic and technical teams (residencies, sessions) in conjunction with the research group. They will thus be able to experiment with an audience that must be involved in this evolution of uses ;
• partnerships are being developed with academia, thanks to teacher-researchers from Université Clermont Auvergne, Paris 8 et Paris 3 ;
• we are currently approaching institutions that can support this action both financially and logistically and strategically : DGCA (Mission recherche), DRAC, Région Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, Département du Puy-de-Dôme (63), etc. We also make contact with professional organizations: in particular the SNMS (Syndicat National des Metteurs en Scène) et l’antenne régionale Auvergne Rhône Alpes du SYNAVI (Syndicat National des Arts Vivants) who are very interested in this process. Contact is made with more technical partners, in particular for expert interventions on the spread of respiratory viruses by air circulation in closed spaces.
• if you wish to accompany us, contact us : contact@lamargeheureuse.com

Coordinated by Julien Daillère, at the initiative of La Marge Heureuse, the team is being set up:

• a tripartite steering committee comprising professionals from artistic / technical fields, mediation / communication and academics
• two working groups (one in Clermont-Ferrand, one in Île-de-France) also tripartite
• members of the association La Marge Heureuse, helping to collect and share informations useful to the collective, concerning the two work axes of the « Avoir Lieu » program

The structuring of this program is being built in partnership with Que fleurisse ton œil.

The team will be in charge of organizing and coordinating the actions carried out, as well as supporting exchanges at the community level of people interacting through the tools offered by La Marge Heureuse.