Useful Fictions & The Speed of Light Expedition
Saturday, Sept. 14, 2019 and Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019, Paris, France
The Speed of Light (SOL) Expedition brings together artists, designers, scientists, and the public to produce work individually and collectively as we travel the same eight kilometers of distance between Mont Valérien in Suresnes and Montmartre defined by physicist Hippolyte Fizeau in his significant 1879 Speed of Light experiment in Paris. Designed with incredible precision, Fizeau’s experiment is a part of the collective genius, a wave of breakthroughs in history that gave birth to Einstein’s theory of relativity that introduced paradigm shifts in the science and art of the modern world.
As an interdisciplinary research project taking place in the “city of light," the SOL Expedition harnesses the momentum of this historical wave of collective genius. The project invites collaborators to conduct research, produce artwork, and design games for public participation, stimulating inquiry and exchange as cultural production that inspires agency. Forum sites and ateliers will be set up at cultural and arts institutions along the journey to invite collaboration. The creative outputs will be documented as a publication for wide dissemination.