L‘appropriation culturel de

l'Espace: ou une éthique de la

curiosité

Roger F Malina
Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence
(OAMP)
Leonardo/OLATS:Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et
Technosciences
 Deux confessions:
• I am a positivist; Je suis un positiviste
– Realist, constructivist
– World exists, is knowable
– Reliance on the senses and their extensions
– Scientific method

• I am an atheist; Je suis athée

– Emergence in complex systems
 Modèle de Concordance de
Cosmologie
Big Bang..Re-ionisation..Grandes Structures.
Étoiles , Galaxies, Planètes ..la vie
The Dark Universe L’Univers Sombre

• Seulement 3% du
contenu de l’univers et
fait du même type de
matière que nous.

• Et nos théories de la
gravite, d’Einstein, on
peut-être besoin d’être
revues
• Et, Ou ?
Dark Matter: La Matiere Sombre
• 30% de l’univers,
une matière sombre
de nature inconnu,
qui est le liant des
structures que nous
voyons

• Invisible a nos
télescopes par ce
qu’elle n’émet pas
de “lumières”
2/3 du contenu de l’univers une ‘énergie sombre”
qui domine l’évolution de l’expansion de l’univers
How is scientific curiosity satisfied ?
• You can only ask questions about parts of
the world that you can « see »
– The senses
– Their extensions through technology
• You stop asking the question as a
scientist when you have a « satifactory »
scientific hypothesis
– Validation, testing, falsifiable => theories

• Three « kinds » of theories

Three linked approaches within the
scientific method that stop curiosity

• Explanation through New Physical « Laws »:

o Compact Descriptions of the World
o Experiments on the world

• Simulations:
o Virtual Worlds that mimic our World
o Retrodiction vs Prediction

• Pattern Recognition:
o « Petabyte » era, Massive Cataloguing, Virtual
Observatories
o Doing experiments on data about the world
o Extrapolation vs Explanation…The End of Theory…
When does one stop looking ?
• What is the limit of curiosity ?
o Scientist: When one has a tested explanation that makes
sense ( as an extension of current scientific modeling of
the world). Universally valid.

o Artist: When one has generated an experience that creates

meaning/changes perception/realised self expression.

o The Arts have many different functions in society

(applies arts, fine arts…) which have evolved over the
millenia and in different societies. Locally valid.
 Is there an « ethics » of
curiosity ?

o Scienceand the Ethics of Curiosity, Sundar

Sarukkai, 2009

o Most Scientists would say: No

o Most Artists would say: Yes

 Curiosity as a driver of technology:
“Most” of the content of the Universe is
“unobservable”
• Not observable with unaided human
senses
• Not observable with existing technologies:
– Augmented senses
– Extended Senses
– New senses
• Not observable because of measurement
method
• Theoretically unobservable
• Conceptually Unobservable
 Sensory paradox:
• Most of our information about the universe
now comes in ways, contexts where we
have no basis for intuition, language,
metaphorical frameworks.

• These devices « hallucinate » in ways with

which we have no experience. How to do
« ground truth » experiments ?

• How to decide what to be curious about ?

 New Senses:
Gravitational Wave Observatories
LIGO in USA VIRGO in Italy
 New senses:
The Antares Neutrino Observatory under the
Mediterranean
 Scientific Curiosity

• Scientific curiosity is ‘pure’, driven by a child

like desire to understand ourselves and the
world around us
o Pure Science vs Applied Science

• Curiosity does not accept authority, but relies

on confrontation of hypotheses/meanings with
experiments/experience.
o No function of ‘science critic’ cf ‘art critic”
o Impact of a scientific theory vs impact of a
masterpiece of art
Ethos of Scientific Curiosity
cf Bunge 2006, Morton

• Intellectual Honesty

• Integrity

• Epistemic Communism

• Organized skepticism

• Dis-interestedness

• Impersonality

• Universality
Is Artistic Curiosity is different ?
cf Sundar Sarukkai: Science and the Ethics of Curiosity 2009

• Curiosity is embodied
• Curiosity is enacted
• Curiosity is cultural
• Curiosity is social
• Curiosity is collective

• “Beware of binary oppositions” !

• Is scientific curiosity really so

different ?
Curiosity is embodied:
Varela:
All knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the knower
Stelarc Char Davies
Kitsou Dubois: Vols Parabolique
Curiosity is enactive
eg Marcel.li Antunez Roca

Richard Feynman: What I cannot create, I cannot understand

 Ansuman Biswas
Russian Cosmonaut training center
Curiosity is Social
Marco Peljham and Makrolab
Curiosity is Cultural
Saint Augustine:
It was curiosity led me along the false trails before submitting
to christian baptisms
Francis Bacon:
It is Charity that must motivate the knower, not curiosity
Donna Cox                                                     Ruth West
Weather Data Bases                                   Protein Sequence Data
Arthur Woods: Cosmic Dancer
In MIR space station
Exposition « data art » de 40
artistes lancer sur satellite
Japonais SPRITE=SAT 2009
 Curiosity is collective:
Frank Malina/WAC corporal team: first man man object in space 1947

• Alan Lightman:
• Individual scientists are not emotionally detached from
their work, it is through their collective activity that
objectivity emerges
 Modern Science doesn’t
make common sense
• New scientific knowledge comes through
the use of instruments that have contact
with a world that is not our world
o Our languages, metaphors, descriptions are
disconnected from these worlds
o We are trained on the wrong data set for survival

• Science has become a cargo cult

 Embodiment
• Einstein:

• The universe of ideas is just as

independent of the nature of our
experience as clothes are of the
form of the human body”
L’espace en tant que “terrain”
pour les artistes
• Forming intuition on mediated sensory
data
• Designing/Interacting with simulated systems
• Making sense/meaning of dense data,
petabyte era

•Making Science Intimate, Peoples

Science, Micro Science

• New Ontologies, New Intuitions, New

Sensuality, Myths and Metaphors…
Curiosity:
D’ou venons nous ?
Que Sommes Nous ?
Ou Allons Nous ?
Ethics of Curiosity: “the nature of the task of
the “ought’ is the other-directedness of the “is”
 ITACCUS
• Committee technique de La Federation
International d’Astronautique
• IAF Technical Activities Committee for the
Cultural Utilisation of Space: ITACCUS
• Promovoir l’utilisation de « l’espace » par les
professionnels des arts et des humanities
• Systèmes( satellites),
Donnees,Technologies

• Comment créer une « culture spatiale »

Nous savons ce que c’est un “paysagiste”, mais nous
n’avons aucune idée de ce que sera un art spatiale
1904 Cezanne 2004 Kitsou Dubois
 Merci !
• Email: roger.malina@oamp.fr
• Sites web:
– www.oamp.fr Observatoire Astronomique de
Marseille Provence
–
– www.olats.fr Observatoire Leonardo des Arts
et Techosciences
• « Space Arts Data Base »