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Platonium : participants in the project

Platonium was created in the framework of the "International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies" by the CNRS and its partners. It is an ambitious art-science project involving both artistic and scientific participants.

Production

French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

  • National direction : Brigitte Perucca, Communications Director (Dircom)
  • Local direction : Sébastien Buthion and Sabrina Raz (CNRS Rhône Auvergne)
  • Scientific management : Catherine Dematteis and Simon Jumel Jumel (Institute of Physics); Jonathan Rangapanaiken (Institute of Chemistry)
  • Web site : Éric Furlan (Dircom)
  • Publishing : Vanessa Cusimano (CNRS Rhône Auvergne)
  • Editorial support : Vincent Bêche (CNRS Rhône Auvergne)

Visit CNRS website

Creation and art direction

Éric Michel, artistic director

Éric Michel is a visual artist and musician and defines himself as a "passer of light ". His paintings featuring saturated colours and pure pigments, his videos and fluorescent installations are essentially part of a quest for the immaterial in the tradition of artists such as Yves Klein, James Turrell or Dan Flavin. His works on display in public and private spaces include: Fluo Red, a luminous installation for the Paris headquarters of the company, Free; Fluo Blue, the facade of the MACMAC in Nice; Les Moulins de Lumière on the site of the 'Grands Moulins de Pantin'.

Visit Éric Michel's website

Akari Lisa Ishii - ICON agency, artistic co-creation and light design

Akari Lisa Ishii is a light designer and, with her ICON agency based in Paris and Tokyo, creates artistic lighting solutions for urban spaces, monuments and public spaces all over the world. Her creations include the Centre Pompidou in Metz, the Gran Via exhibition centre in Barcelona and the Kabuki-za theatre in Tokyo.

The ICON agency website

Éric Michel and Frédéric Fleischer, music

Studio Alban Perret, 3D modelling The Studio Alban Perret website

Brochier Technologies, luminous materials

Antonin Guesdon, Linaa Lamaa, Laure Peruchon, Cédric Brochier The Brochier Technologies website

Eurosono, technical production

Alexandre Jeannerod The Eurosono website

Partners in this creation

Université de Lyon

The Université de Lyon is a community of universities and establishments (COMUE) with the status of EPSCP or public scientific, cultural or professional establishment. It has12 member institutions in higher education and research on the Lyon Saint-Etienne site and 11 associated institutions.

The site houses 129,000 students, 11,500 researchers and academics, 5,400 doctoral students, 220 public laboratories and 9 competitive clusters.

The Université de Lyon benefits from a first-rate site in the heart of an attractive territory with a strong and dynamic economic fabric. It possesses unique research facilities and a pool of researchers who provide research and teaching of guaranteed excellence.

A wide variety of courses are taught covering all scientific fields: life sciences and the science of matter, humanities and social sciences, information and communication technologies, health, engineering sciences, library science, arts and performance, languages and literature, architecture and business studies.

The mission of this community is to federate, develop and promote the high level of scientific potential in Lyon and Saint Etienne. It also drives major territorial projects for the future such as the Lyon Cité Campus project - a joint programme for the construction and renovation of property on local campuses - or the joint response to the IDEX 2 call for projects for excellence initiatives launched by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

The Université de Lyon website

Claude-Bernard-Lyon 1 University

Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University is a science, technology and health university which has been providing higher education excellence and cutting-edge research for 40 years.

The 4500 staff members who make up the university are committed on a daily basis to providing both demanding courses which are in touch with the requirements in the field and high quality research to ensure that all their students can build a bright professional future.

The university has a dual commitment to professional integration and research. It has an 85% rate of professional integration following graduation. Alongside this the research area is made up of 2,700 academics, 68 laboratories and possesses unique facilities.

In the fields of science, technology and health, each year Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University trains 45,000 students through research to qualify them for the professions of tomorrow.

Lyon 1 is a multidisciplinary university working on both fundamental and applied research with over 4500 international publications and 40 patent applications per year. It is in fact ranked first among French universities for patent applications.

Bernard Lyon 1 University website

Laboratories

Institute of Light and Matter (ILM)

Philippe Dugourd (Director), Brigitte Prével, Anne-Marie Jurdyc, Gérard Panczer, Paolo Maïoli, David Amans, Julien Houel, Franck Lepine, Sébastien Lherminier, Antonio Pereira, Osvanny Ramos, Vincent Motto Ros

The Institute of Light and Matter (ILM) is a joint research unit under the administrative authority of Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University and the CNRS. It is a multidisciplinary centre of excellence based on the synergy between physics, chemistry and their interfaces.

Light is an exceptional tool for revealing the properties of matter which can act as a guide for light. The Institute's researchers delve into the heart of matter to obtain information enabling them to better understand its properties using multi-scale approaches both in space (from the nanometre to the metre) and time (from the attosecond to the second). The interaction between light and matter as a fundamental science and as a diagnosis and analysis tool is one of the many strong points of this Institute.

The ILM website

Lyon Centre for Astrophysics Research - Lyon Observatory (CRAL)

Laurence Tresse (Director), Caroline Vilatte, Emmanuel Pecontal, Johan Richard, Jérémy Blaizot, Maxime Trebitsch, Léo Michel-Dansac

The Lyon Centre for Astrophysics Research (CRAL) is a joint research unit under the administrative authority of Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University, the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) of Lyon and the CNRS. The CRAL is a laboratory working on fundamental research in Astronomy and Astrophysics and on developing instrumentation for major observatories.

Light in all its forms is our prime source of knowledge about the Universe. Astronomers and engineers work on thinking up and developing ever-more effective instruments to capture this faraway light.

In this framework, the CRAL develops and steers projects for major international observatories both on land and in space. In particular, the Centre works for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) which are both part of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and located in Chile, and also for the European Space Agency (ESA). The Centre also works on instrumentation Research and Development (R&D).

The CRAL is renowned for its fundamental research and observational planetary, stellar and extragalactic astronomy as well as its work in the field of cosmology. All its work is based on its expertise in massively parallel digital simulations, intensive computing and image reconstruction.

The CRAL website

Institute of Research on Catalysis and Environment in Lyon (Ircelyon)

Catherine Pinel-Henryon (Director), Chantal Guillard, Chloé Indermuhle, Éric Puzenat

Production, processes, materials, chemistry, light, yield, environmental remediation, energy and the environment are commonly produced words at our laboratory. Catalysis is a key science which is essential for the synthesis of products which society greatly needs such as fuels, raw materials or medicines.

Our discipline played a major role in post-war mass chemical production and those involved quickly became aware of the industrial and anthropogenic pollution it was causing along with its consequences for public health and the environment. Those working in our discipline therefore strongly committed to the development of more effective and environment-friendly manufacturing processes. The discipline thus became an essential driving force in conceiving environmental remediation processes for the air and water and enhancing understanding of the effects of pollutants on health and our climate.

The Institute of Research on Catalysis and Environment in Lyon has 250 researchers, engineers and technicians. It is a place for innovation in the fields of energy, the environment, atmospheric chemistry and sustainable development.

Limiting the consumption of our planet's fossil resources, reducing emissions, processing waste products, making full use of renewable resources and better use of solar energy, imagining the factories of the future and securing energy transition are all major societal challenges for the coming decades.

The Ircelyon website