Context and background

The founding spirit of this transversal theme lies in the cross-fertilization already undertaken by the laboratory between digital technology in all its forms and different fields such as culture and creation, design, well-being and health, education, etc...

This theme is perfectly in line with the strategic directions resulting from regional, national and European reflections.

At the level of our research structure, we are innovating in the design of "living environments" in six strategic areas of application for the digital society : 1) Heritage (heritage mediation) and tourism 2) Images, Media and Digital Arts 3) Well-being, well-being (Health, Work, Aging...) 4) Digital education 5) Digital Humanities 6) Creative and creative city.

Principles and actions

These fields of application can benefit from the development of the most advanced scientific tools. In this respect, the range of scientific tools that can be convened and that are part of the activities and expertise of our teams is very wide. These include 3D modeling, shape recognition, information visualization, temporal and sequential data analysis, gesture analysis, corpus analysis, social network analysis, document and language processing, and human behaviour analysis.

The cross-fertilization of the disciplines developed within the different teams finds here a very favourable ground. But the fields of application necessarily invite much broader interdisciplinary cross-fertilization (SHS, Design, Art, Health...) which cannot be limited to the transformation of researchers from the laboratory into technicians/engineers at the service of the practitioners with whom they work. It is indeed a question of following strong principles: the development of an interdisciplinary approach to research (e. g. computer scientist + SHS) and the hybridization of practices in a co-production approach.
The three main areas of research identified in the theme concern :

• the design of systems for the digital society: Museography and new methods of cultural and heritage mediation, Digital humanities, digital education, Digital libraries, New connected objects, Development of systems to support the person, the child, the worker...
• the design of new interactions and couplings with digital artifacts: Digital art, interactive excavation and coupling with algorithms, human-robot interaction, computer-assisted human translation, reflective technologies, bio-feedback...
• the analysis of practices and interactions with digital artifacts: Uses of digital works, systems and installations, Quality of experience of digital artifacts, Analysis of the evolution of human-machine coupling, Mutation of practices (musical, scientific, etc.) in a digital environment....

The assets

The theme is based on :

• national and international nuggets of key scientific competencies in several disciplines. Some of them already interface with SHS disciplines (Trace analysis, Quality of experience, E-learning, Document analysis, Language processing, Large dimension additive design, Inspired organic robotics...).
• strong partnerships with SHS laboratories: AMO, LPPL, CFV...
• the dynamics of RFIs in relation to the theme with in particular the Atlanstic202020-RFI, or OIC axis of interaction, for which the laboratory is in the very first line of research actions.
• the involvement in the future master's degree in digital cultures.
• relationships with a rich ecosystem: NantesTech, Cluster OuestMedialab, PRI Design IN, Stéréolux, Compagnie La Machine, Cantine numérique....
• the animation and management of two platforms dedicated to digital cultures of the future University Pole in Hall 6 in the heart of the Quartier de la Création (a Userlab and a Fablab).