On Hypozoology

In the frame of the online project “ADM XI”, which proposes a taxonomic study or a classification of trading algorithms, the Jeu de Paume and the RYBN collective have invited Louis Bec, artist, scientist and the only zoosystemician on earth, to discuss the fundamentals of his research.

The classification of living things by the living beings can be considered as one of the first experiments of modeling undertaken by the human species to make comprehensible a strangely heterogeneous world. Taxonomy has thus gradually become an act of creation of potential, additive, adaptive and predictive, universes, all the while attempting to apply grids on a elusive reality in the interest of producing an objective reading. Current scientific classifications, based on the most recent discoveries of molecular biology and genetic engineering, have generated virtualities that depart from original nature. In order to explore the consequences of this virtualization within the classification of living organisms, Louis Bec develops a virtual Hypozoology, a weird and eccentric zoology emerging from beneath the appearances where an exotic and unusal living organism evolves : the Upokrinomene.
Taxonomy is, for Louis Bec and prolific means for artificial creation, as Nelson Goodman describes it, an efficient “way of world making‚”. Bec will illustrate his talk with digital modeling, videos, classification diagrams and schemes.

Louis Bec was born in Algeria in 1936. As a zoosystemician and researcher he describes artificial life from the angle of epistemology appealing to the methodological side of modeling, bioinformatics and technozoosemiotics.
Publications: “Vampyroteuthis Infernalis” (with V.Flusser, Göttingen, 1988), “Elements d’épistemologie fabulatoire” (ed. by C.Langton, Santa Fe, 1990), “Elements D’Hypozoologie” (G.Pompidou Centre, Paris, 1993), “Esthetique du renfloue” (ed. by P.Weibel, Munich-Vienna, 1993), “La Vie artificielle comme machination” (Ars Electronica, Linz, 1993), “Des systemes technozoologiques comme fabulation” (French Institute, Bilbao, 1996). Chief curator of “Le Vivant et l’artificiel” (Avignon 1984), Art/Cognition” (Aix en Provence 1992), “Emaitre” (Moscow-Genoa 1996-99) and “AVIGNONumeriqie / Les Mutalogues” (Avignon – the Cultural Capital of Europe, 2000), as well as “E-agora” and “Alterne” (London, Lausanne, Graz, Amsterdam, Marseilles and others, 2002-05). Founder and president of the Research Institute of Paranaturalistics (Sorgues 1972). Research in the field of artificial life conducted in collaboration with the French National Science Centre (CNRS), the Laboratory of Photon Researches at the Strasbourg University (ENSPS/ARTCAPI), the Biology Laboratory at the University of Grenoble and others.
http://www.flusserstudies.net/person/louis-bec

The french translation of “Vampyrotheutis Infernarlis” is published on November, 2015, by Zones Sensibles.
http://www.zones-sensibles.org/flusser-bec-vampyroteuthis-infernalis/

ADM XI is an online platform created by the RYBN.ORG collective, co-produced by the Jeu de Paume, curated Inke Arns, curator of the Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV), Dortmund. ADM XI exhibits trading algorithms proposed by b01xy, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Femke Herregraven, Brendan Howell, Martin Howse, Nicolas Montgermont, Horia Cosmin Samoila, Antoine Schmitt, Marc Swynghedauw, Suzanne Treister.
http://espacevirtuel.jeudepaume.org/adm-xi-une-proposition-du-collectif-rybn-2603/