Leiden, February 2015. With the rise of the internet, writing practices were dramatically transformed. Not only, text processing softwares allow one to interact very differently with words, by using a keyboard, but also with sentences and paragraphs that can be […]

Ivry, july 2014. There are codes that now seem shared. Due to the standardization of road signs, red became the color to indicate ban, would it be “do not play” or “do not park”. Conversely, blue embodies the color of […]

Bordeaux, February 2015. The French restaurant experience does not begin with white tablecloths and waiters dressed in black but starts out of the room, in front of a legal signage which has to be displayed with available food and drinks, […]

These days have brought a lot of newspapers at home. Paper journals, in addition to the digital ones. Like everybody else I guess, we were trying to build some kind of archives, real-time memories of what was happening. Though TV […]

Paris, January 2015. In a wireless connected world everything appears smooth and seamless. One navigates almost simultaneously in several spaces upon the flat surface of a screen, being the one of a laptop, a smartphone or a touchpad. One jumps […]

Paris & everywhere else, January 2015. In the streets, on TV, in newspapers, on social networks sites, on clothes: a few hours after the shock of the first murders, a graphic object has multiplied before our eyes, becoming a demonstration […]

Ivry-sur-Seine, December 2014. In the city, on sidewalks, neon yellow cubes had appeared at the end of the fall, without explanation or instructions. Faced with this new one, the mystery of their presence is resolved: they are built in the […]

Paris, November 2014. The globalization of markets delivers the same experience from one place to another, the certainty to fulfill our habits whether we are here or there, close to home or a ten-hour flight away. Against this homogenization, different […]

On a highway, October 2012. For a similar price, buying a car goes hand in hand with a range of customization options dedicated to increase security, confort, even dwelling, during journeys. From this point of view, a car equals dreaming, […]

Western Massachussets, May 2014 Feminism has pushed to treat domestic space as a workspace. Tasks that take place there are certainly not usually paid but they consume a significative part of waking hours, and primarily those of women. Despite multiple […]

Madeira, october 2014 A door & some keys. It is not a sophisticated digital device, on which some highly-resistant code should be typed to open it, but the recycling of keyboards that used to compose a map, that of the […]

Paris, may 2014. A group of international experts meet in a workshop about research assessment. Their discussions are at a very advanced stage, in particular regarding the traditional bibliometrics indicators based on citation in peer-reviewed journals compared to the challenging […]

I don’t know if you’ve heard about Skylanders, but you must admit it’s quite a good idea. It’s pretty simple. The characters of your video game are linked to figurines, which are « recognized » when you put them upon […]

Western Massachussets, octobre 2013. At the corner of a small wooded street in a sleepy college town is a wooden shelter. It does not welcome birds or beneficial bugs so useful to biodiversity, but only used books. This is a […]

La Rochelle, july 2014. Barely entered in our lives, they keep on changing, making us laugh, amazing us. They regularly put us to the test , momentarily annoy us , but mostly they surprise us and, of course, grow as […]

Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport, june 2014. Flying is a strange experience from a temporal and spatial point of view: it is the fastest way to get from one point to another and yet it is one with the most waiting times. […]

Paris, May 2014 We know that urban ecology is not just about landmarks and panels made ​​to find our ways. They especially guide our propensities, demand from us and facilitate our actions, lead us to do or not to do, […]

Paris, march 2014. Controlling the circulation of information has been crucial in human relationships for a long time. Mutual trust is a means to keep a secret, being at the core of a family history, an industrial process, or a political strategy. And distinct […]

With protests and strikes comes writing. Banners, signs, flyers. If you have something to say when you are on the streets or in front of a factory, you better write it down somewhere. Make sure the words remain, stand besides […]

Paris , March 2014 Individual printers have increased opportunities for signage : everyone can now print a sheet describing a warning here, there a request or an instruction . With the spread of color printing, a red CAREFUL now seems […]

Paris, march 2014. When one is moving out of an apartment into another accommodation, a huge amount of documents has to be accumulated and assembled in different files. Purchase contracts, loans offers, notarized acts, insurance contracts, the minutes of the […]

New York, March 2014. It seems the world we’re living in is largely driven by the fusion between measure, calculation and anticipation. The role indexes and scores do play in sectors such as insurance, banks, stock exchanges, but also sciences […]

Granada, February 2014. The invasion of public space by commercial ads is sometimes welcome, especially because of the income they generate for owners renting visibility spaces. Symmetrically , it causes different forms of resistance, the most visible being the interference […]

Paris, july 2013. I regularly pay a visit to this dude. Back in the days, we used to belong together and he always has a story to tell. This time he told me that he planned to go to southern […]

Paris, january 2014.

Tickets buying and selling have known quite a revolution with the development of online reservations. Nowadays, not only can you order one ticket for a movie or a show directly from your bedroom, but you can (and sometimes have to) […]

Before entering the building, you had already heard a lot about this organization: how bad it is for the French research community, how dangerous it is for the innovative and creative research, how restrictive it is for the autonomy of […]

New Haven, october 2013. This is one of the first lessons for children: go over there only through crosswalks , hold hands, wait until the light is green , all these little things that we gradually quit with adulthood. “Parisian […]

Museums are not very different from laboratories. A lot of things have to be controlled within their environment to make these venues fully functional. Of course, each exhibition has its specificities, regarding the kind of artworks they are dealing with, […]

Paris, december 2013. Happy new year! It is time for good resolutions. It is time for important decisions. One does not hesitate to plan the near future, one takes the risk to make public announcements. Such promises made in front […]

Montpellier, november 2013. Wine lists usually appear in the form of a text included in a cardboard or a plastic support. It includes the name of the wines, their vintage varieties or their classification and of course, their price. For […]

Writing is quite a complicated thing to study, for many reasons. Particularly difficult is the comprehension of its intertwining with other elements. Writing does not exist per se. It always implies both lines and a surface upon which they are […]

Yosemite Park, October 2013 Natural parks are physical oxymora. To enclose the nature that must remain intact, enormous human and material resources have to be deployed. And the best way to maintain them is to allow visitors, under the control […]