Oscillation: Material, Computational, and Ecological Reciprocities
Research Team
Dr Alice Jarry
Dr Marie-Pier Boucher
Dr Sofian Audry
Dr Ramin Sedaghati
Dr Samuel Bianchini
Collaborators:
Dr Jane Tingley
Dr Joel Ong
Dr Patricia Ribault
Dr Edwige Armand
Danny Perreault
Funding
SSHRC Connection
Dr Alice Jarry
Dr Marie-Pier Boucher
Dr Sofian Audry
Dr Ramin Sedaghati
Dr Samuel Bianchini
Collaborators:
Dr Jane Tingley
Dr Joel Ong
Dr Patricia Ribault
Dr Edwige Armand
Danny Perreault
Funding
SSHRC Connection
Exhibition view, Canadian Cultural Center-Paris, October 2025.
Photos: Vincent Royer
Partners
Canadian Cultural Center-Paris
Hexagram Network
University of Toronto Pedagogical Fund
Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials ans Materiality
Canadian Cultural Center-Paris
Hexagram Network
University of Toronto Pedagogical Fund
Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials ans Materiality
Oscillation: Material, Computational, and Ecological Reciprocities is an interuniversity knowledge mobilization project at the intersection of design, digital art, robotics, media studies, and mechanical engineering. It examines the material and energetic conditions that underpin the production of sustainable relationships and interactions among natural environments, the built environment, organic and inorganic materiality, and human practices. Grounded in experimental work with residual, active, and bio-inspired materials, the project advances an interdisciplinary, critical, and creative inquiry into their integration within adaptive eco-technological artistic systems.
The project is situated within a genealogy of theoretical and conceptual approaches drawn from the philosophy of materiality, science and technology studies (STS), media studies, environmental humanities, and cultural, feminist, and postcolonial studies, all of which critically examine the political and social dimensions of materiality. It addresses a recognized gap in the critical engagement with the resources mobilized—material, energetic, technological, methodological, and human—to articulate, explain, and formalize these issues through the creation of artistic systems.
The project is situated within a genealogy of theoretical and conceptual approaches drawn from the philosophy of materiality, science and technology studies (STS), media studies, environmental humanities, and cultural, feminist, and postcolonial studies, all of which critically examine the political and social dimensions of materiality. It addresses a recognized gap in the critical engagement with the resources mobilized—material, energetic, technological, methodological, and human—to articulate, explain, and formalize these issues through the creation of artistic systems.
Oscillation places particular emphasis on the research process within research-creation, grounding its program in both critical and aesthetic reflection on how technological artistic systems generate embodied experiences capable of reimagining relationships among materiality, the living and the non-living, humans, and natural and built environments. The project seeks to activate critical imaginaries that foster exchanges among academic, artistic, and scientific communities, while engaging broader publics.
The project unfolds through two central objectives. First, it seeks to analyze, connect, and model research-creation processes at the intersection of their material and computational dimensions in order to deepen their conceptual and operational understanding and facilitate their transferability across fields of practice. Second, it brings together an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers and practitioners working at the interface of these questions, with the aim of supporting, enriching, and strengthening dialogue while creating the conditions for new synergies and solidarities across disciplines and practices.
Its program includes an exhibition presented at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris as part of the 2025 Némo Biennale, an international symposium, and five multilingual, multi-platform publication formats: a fanzine, a series of visual essays, research-creation demonstrations, a podcast series, and an edited monograph.
The project unfolds through two central objectives. First, it seeks to analyze, connect, and model research-creation processes at the intersection of their material and computational dimensions in order to deepen their conceptual and operational understanding and facilitate their transferability across fields of practice. Second, it brings together an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers and practitioners working at the interface of these questions, with the aim of supporting, enriching, and strengthening dialogue while creating the conditions for new synergies and solidarities across disciplines and practices.
Its program includes an exhibition presented at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris as part of the 2025 Némo Biennale, an international symposium, and five multilingual, multi-platform publication formats: a fanzine, a series of visual essays, research-creation demonstrations, a podcast series, and an edited monograph.
