Balance and supports

A method for the sustainability of projects.

Based on the way the human body balances itself, for a sustainable approach to project management.Observation of nature is often very good advice for engineering projects (architecture, aviation, textiles, IT, neural networks for example...). (…)

Helping professionals design new types of projects adapted to the needs of young people

Laboratory for an original training and project development program.

In the face of young people’s indifference toward institutional culture, I propose exploring an innovative training framework aimed at helping professionals rethink their cultural approaches. This involves deconstructing preconceived notions and (…)

Professional meeting “Public participation”: presentation by Benoît Labourdette

Interview of Benoît Labourdette by Jean-Yves de Lépinay (11’37s, 2020).

Sharing examples of audiovisual creation workshops conducted in the spirit of cultural rights: moving from “participation” to “interaction.”This trust we choose to put in others is a risk we take, it changes us. We take the risk of being able (…)

Presence, care and politics

When self-care becomes an act of political resistance.

Presence, care, and politics are intimately linked. Faced with contemporary biopower that controls bodies and attacks our free will, cultivating inner presence becomes resistance and a path towards true democracy. Definitions Presence is an (…)

Immersion VR: launch of an educational project, between collective creation and virtual reality

Three middle school classes are about to explore the narrative possibilities of 360° immersive cinema.

On October 15, 2025, at the Canopé workshop in Lyon: the start of a unique creative adventure, having three middle school classes create a virtual reality film over the year, by first exploring what immersion truly means. First half-day of (…)

The writing of the screenplay in terms of the DVD

New technologies, new ways of writing.

The digital age is transforming the traditional screenplay into a more complex, modular object. In cinema as in institutional works or for social networks, the anticipation of multiple uses, already on DVD since the late 90s and now in streaming, (…)

The replicable contribution platform

A common base, proven on several real-world projects, for deploying a collective writing platform adapted to each process in just a few days.

Process after process, we have built a common base for a contribution platform: a web space where a group writes, during and between sessions, leading to a joint production. This project consists in turning it into a replicable service, (…)

Cultural data and cultural rights

For an inclusive heritage democracy in the digital age.

Citizen cultural data is tomorrow’s heritage. Their recognition and preservation constitute a major democratic challenge for building a constructive collective memory for future democracies. The technical foundations of an interoperable digital (…)

Letting autistic children make images

An account of a video workshop at the André Boulloche day hospital.

Over a period of several months, I led a video-creation workshop in a day hospital that cares for autistic children. I want to give an account of it, session by session, and then draw from it a reflection on my own practice. The choice to let (…)

Cultural venues and social networks

How to turn audiences into ambassadors rather than chasing followers.

Cultural venues are on social media out of obligation, without a clear strategy or convincing results. We need to rethink their presence: no longer communicating vertically, but nurturing audience sharing. A presence to be questionedCultural (…)

DCP building (Digital Cinema Package)

We produce DCP (Digital Cinema Package) of movies, ie digital copies for projection in theaters. Very precise standardsStandards projection in theaters, either at the picture and sound are extremely accurate. This is a great opportunity for (…)

A new friend invites itself

Anthropomorphism and Artificial Intelligence.

On April 5, 2025, Meta AI enters our WhatsApp conversations. Not as a tool, but as a contact. This presence raises a crucial question: how can we preserve our humanity in the face of machines that increasingly resemble us? WhatsApp: from simple (…)

The screens of a child in care

Foster carers, educational teams, institutions: who plays the parent’s role with the screens of a child in care?

Everything written about digital parenting assumes a home, parents, a family table. For a child in care, the home is multiple: the family, the foster carer, the residential team, the school, sometimes the judge. The questions families ask (…)

Extended integrity

Thinking our cyborg condition in the age of artificial intelligence.

We are cyborgs: this is an anthropological observation, not a metaphor. Our integrity as persons is no longer contained within the limits of the biological body; it extends into our machines, our data, and now into the artificial intelligences (…)

The writing being

Writing, identity and world transformation.

Writing shapes us. Beyond the traditional writer, the “writing being” encompasses anyone who writes—from journalists to social media users—whose words transform reality and construct identity. The “Writer” Before and After the Internet (…)

The web

Autumn Festival in Normandy Hybridations # 2 - New creative ways (web conference)

Roundtable / lectures on the issues of creation in the digital age.Rouen, 2 December 2014. I participated in the roundtable / lectures as an artist and cultural player. It is obvious, digital upset the issues of artistic creation, whether from (…)

Artistic creation in a digital environment

Commentary on the report commissioned by DRAC Bretagne (August 2023).

A study on the subject of digital and artistic creation reveals, through its unquestioned biases, the unconscious desire not to move the lines of the cultural hierarchical system, a comfort zone for professionals, which cuts off cultural players (…)

Creation and Virtual Reality

Critical thinking and creative methods.

Building a critical thinking of the stakes of Virtual Reality (360°) films, through practical application and creativity.This article was originally published in 2020 in « Les cahiers de Louis Lumière n°13 ».Virtual Reality has been (…)

Piracy: an unknown blessing for the audiovisual sector

Legal, historical, technological, economic and political elements.

“Piracy is a danger for creation, infringers must be punished”: this is the commonly accepted discourse, which directs points of view, regulatory and professional choices. And yet, the very people who hold this discourse contradict it in their (…)

Digital sovereignty, a democratic emergency

When our public institutions jeopardize our collective autonomy.

The loss of our digital sovereignty does not result from the thoughtlessness of citizen-users, but from a form of political unconsciousness regarding the power issues carried by industrial tools, including and particularly digital tools. This (…)

Arts Center of Enghien-les-bains - Animation movie workshop

The Arts Centre Enghien Les Bains / digital Scriptures, an important place of digital creation in France, proposed Saturday, December 2, 2012, the first workshop for animation movie... with mobile phone ! Designed with and led by Benoît (…)

The Digital as Living Environment: Rethinking Cultural Practices in the Anthropocene Era

Presentation by Benoît Labourdette at the Graduate Schools Seminar “Imaginaries of the Anthropocene and New Contexts” (University of Burgundy, December 11, 2025).

On December 11, 2025, at the invitation of Alain Chenevez, Senior Lecturer (HDR) in Sociology at the University of Burgundy, I spoke alongside Olivier Servais, digital anthropologist at the Catholic University of Louvain, as part of the Graduate (…)

It happened far from home

Collective film (4’38s, 2019).

When objects also decide to tackle their problems with digital technology.

The paradox of digital criticism

When intellectual posturing masks our own contradictions.

Critics of digital technology abound: Airbnb is destroying city centers, instant access to everything is destroying our relationship with time, consumption is spiraling out of control. Yet these same critics massively use what they denounce. This (…)

Organization of digital items for the digitized films of Jacques Tati

Participation in the organization of a digital film heritage. Benefits of digitizationBeyond the technical debates between analog and digital cinema, digitization of film heritage works is a blessing for their durability and technical quality (…)

Digital is not immaterial

Elements of understanding.

The digital world is much more material than we think. It seems important to me to take the measure of it in a concrete way, it is what can allow to build good strategies of organization of its data: to better manage them, not to lose them in the (…)

“Artistic creation and digital heritage”: conference by Benoît Labourdette

Bibliothèque Forney (Paris) on Thursday, April 28, 2022 from 7:30 pm to 9 pm. Free admission.

Awareness and responsibility in the present with regard to our digital heritage are the guarantee of the construction of our humanity.Human beings have always told the story of their sensitivities and their visions of the world by all possible (…)

Rebuilding the Democratic Function of Major Performing Arts Venues

At a time when anyone can be a creator, what could theatres, national stages and drama centres become for the people who live around them?

Digital technology has made each of us a potential creator. This anthropological transformation calls for a rethinking of the political function of publicly funded performing arts, and of what their major venues could become for the people who (…)

Timetology

Film collectif (2’37s, 2020).

Dans l’antre des technologies, lieu des mutations de l’humain.

« Les acteurs inconscients » en compétition à VIDEOFORMES, du 12 au 29 mars 2009

VIDEOFORMES est l’autre Festival de Clermont-Ferrand, consacré depuis plus de 20 ans aux innovations audiovisuelles.Pour sa 24è édition, la « Manifestation internationale art vidéo et cultures numérique » a choisi d’intégrer à la compétition « (…)

The Land We Cultivate

The ownership of the means of computation is becoming a major political question, as the ownership of land once was.

We used to own our tools; we now rent our means of thinking. Software, music, films and artificial intelligences are used by subscription, on distant machines that belong to others. I propose to read this situation across two long spans of time, (…)

The moving debate revisited: playing positions, revealing power, keeping a trace

A popular education method adapted for artistic and cultural mediation, in which the topic of the debate matters less than the way discourses are built and positions are taken within it.

The moving debate is a popular education game in which participants position themselves physically in the room to defend a thesis, including a thesis that is not their own. I propose here a version designed for artistic and cultural mediation, (…)

Online training course: “Short film, digital and 21^st Century: new media, new uses, new paths”.

43^rd Grenoble Open Air Short Film Festival : film analysis course.

The Grenoble Open Air Short Film Festival always starts with a two-day course. For the 43rd edition of the festival in 2020, the workshop is animated by Benoît Labourdette, and takes place in video, on the theme “Short film, digital and 21st (…)

Podcast: “The living archive”

Benoît Labourdette reflects on the challenges of digital archiving in the arts and culture (44’, 2023).

How empowering people to take responsibility for archiving and using data can be a real strategy for the vitality of creation, both artistically and economically.In this podcast (44 minutes), I lay the conceptual and technical foundations, (…)

Pôle Image Franche Comté : “New digital tools and image pedagogy”

Conference by Benoît Labourdette in video on the theme “New digital tools and image pedagogy”. Duration: 1h. Pôle Image Franche Comté. March 2016, the 22th.The challenges of image education change deep enough due to the changes in uses and (…)

The biases of trust in machines

Why do we prefer algorithmic authority to human expertise?

We proclaim our attachment to human autonomy in the face of machines, but our everyday behaviors reveal a very different reality: we willingly delegate our decisions to them. The Paradox of Our Voluntary SubmissionDiscourses on artificial (…)

Short bio & filmo

Benoît Labourdette is a filmmaker, educator, researcher, essayist and consultant in cultural innovation and digital strategies. He is also a multidisciplinary artist and president of the Benoît Labourdette production agency, which builds cultural (…)

Lilas News: “When everyday devices become creative tools!”

Newspaper article.

The municipal newspaper “Lilas News” announces the digital audiovisual creation workshops, as part of the project “The Digital Factory”, proposed by Benoît Labourdette..

Digital politics

When clicking becomes voting: the hidden face of our technological choices.

Code is law: digital tools are not neutral. Our daily technological choices are political acts that shape the world. Here are concrete elements for personal and collective awareness and action. The Choice of Hosting: A Masked Political Decision (…)

A new season with 220 voices

The story of a morning on young people’s cultural practices, facilitated for the 220 staff members of the culture department of Laval, on 2 September 2026.

The “Cultures pour tous” department of Laval and Laval Agglomération entrusted me with facilitating its back-to-work gathering, a full morning devoted to the cultural practices of 15-25 year olds. 150 people were expected, 220 came, from the (…)

A specialist in your pocket

What becomes of the figure of the specialist in the age of artificial intelligences, and why this question engages the very architecture of our dependencies.

Each of us now carries in our pocket a machine that answers as a specialist in almost everything. What can one still be a specialist of? I propose an answer here, the bond between people, and I put it to the test of the history of publishing, (…)

Data Centers: We Fill Them Ourselves

Telling projects apart, deliberating on our tools, bringing our data home, equipping ourselves for collective intelligence: what we can do together as data centres multiply.

In an op-ed published in Le Monde on 14 August 2026, Stéphane Troussel, president of the Seine-Saint-Denis departmental council, calls for a pause and for public consultation on the development of data centres. I agree with him, and I propose to (…)

Digital and rationality

For a non-phantasmic vision of digital technologies.

Digital technology, often wrongly associated with rationality, is in reality an imperfect and material technology. Our choices of digital tools are political and determine the world we collectively build. A Pseudo-Critical SpiritIn debates, (…)

The returned gaze

When technology turns back upon itself, it is us it auscultates.

An artificial intelligence model capable of detecting flaws in computer code accomplishes a philosophically unprecedented gesture: technology examining its own material. This self-referentiality without consciousness opens a reflection on what we (…)

How digital technology reshapes our relationship to the performing arts

Summary of my contribution to the Chaillot Augmenté x Rencontres TMNlab round table of 6 May 2026.

On Wednesday 6 May 2026, I was invited to speak at the round table “Audiences: how does digital technology reshape our relationship to the performing arts?”, part of the Chaillot Augmenté x Rencontres TMNlab days. I argued that digital technology (…)

15-25 year-olds have not deserted politics

A survey of recent research on the politicisation of young adults, and concrete ways of bringing democracy to life with them.

Young adults vote intermittently, express themselves first of all online, and young women and young men now diverge in their political orientations. I bring together here the recent research that documents these shifts, by Anne Muxel, Vincent (…)

Reflections on a professional training session at ESRA for camera operators (OPV).

Retour sur une formation professionnelle à l’ESRA pour des OPV (Opérateur·ice·s de prise de vue).

Moving tables to shift perspectives: the story of a day where we browsed, photographed, and created together to question what technologies do to our ways of working and connecting. Breaking the FrameArriving in a training room with a suitcase (…)

The marginality of cultural institutions

Lucidity of a paradigm shift.

Traditional cultural institutions, once central, have become marginal in the face of digital practices that now dominate citizens’ attention. This paradigm shift demands a reinvention of public cultural service—more humble but potentially more (…)

Cyan Magenta Yellow Black

Revisit the principles of four-colour printing, with inks and ashes. Fifteen “numerical paintings”.Mechanical colour reproduction does not use the same primary colours as in painting. There are only three: Red, Green and Blue. On computer (…)

The Digital Washhouse : 8×8 Season 0 Episode 1

Video interview between Franck Ancel and Benoît Labourdette on the stakes of images and digital, as part of the prefiguration of the Digital Washhouse.

CFI : Digital Training for teachers editors (AFDA - South Africa)

Expert training to technology and digital video workflows, for editing teachers from several schools in the African continent. At AFDA, Johannesburg, South Africa. Inter-school training programCFI the French Cooperation Agency media, organizes (…)

New Media Professional Training (ESRA)

Practice to prepare for tomorrow’s challenges.

A Sector Linked to InnovationThe ESRA, a private film school established in 1972, also offers professional training programs. I led a session on new media as part of a professional training course designed for camera operators, assistant (…)

Nectart magazine: “Are digital platforms transforming our relationship to art?”

Article by Benoît Labourdette, published in the magazine Nectart issue 15 (June 2022).

Contrary to popular belief, digital platforms can be real crucibles of creativity and cultural diversity, given their very powerful springs and the fact that they encourage us to reinvent ourselves, to question the very notion of a work of art. (…)

The Dead End of Digital Conscientious Objection

On the necessity of inhabiting our technological environments rather than fleeing them.

Faced with the deployment of generative AI, some researchers proclaim conscientious objection. I defend instead the requirement of critical presence and empowerment through practice. The trap of disembodied critiqueSeveral researchers, notably (…)

Afnic Foundation: films presenting the winning projects for 2021

5 films directed by Benoît Labourdette.

Short films presenting a selection of projects supported by the Afnic Foundation for Digital Solidarity in 2021, for broadcast on social networks and project promotion.In 2021, the Afnic Foundation supported 92 projects, for a total amount of (…)

Will Heritage Still Be Part of Our Lives in 2045?

Digitising collections is not enough: the challenge is to enable their appropriation by citizens.

Cultural practices in 2045 will be as different from ours as ours are from those of 2005. At that time, YouTube did not exist, no one had a smartphone, and content creation was reserved for professionals. For heritage to remain alive in future (…)

Cultural summer 2022 with Cultures du coeur: “Changing horizons”.

Tour of film-making workshops in the social field.

During “l’été culturel 2022” (French Ministry of Culture), Cultures du cœur offered nine social structures around France the opportunity to take part in cut-paper animation workshops, designed and run by Benoît Labourdette, on the theme of (…)

Cultural rights and preservation of digital heritage

Bernard Stiegler’s technical philosophy sheds political light.

Have you ever tried to find a video you loved on YouTube from ten years ago? A blog post that made an impression on you? Your friends’ photos on MySpace? There’s a good chance this content has vanished. The Internet Archive’s “Vanishing Culture” (…)

Afnic Foundation: teaser of the 2020 calls for projects

A film by Benoît Labourdette (2’00s, 2020).

The Fondation Afnic supports projects that combine digital technology and solidarity. Benoît Labourdette’s visualization of the 2020 calls for projects.

Create a DCP for theatrical screening

Tutorial for a professional practice

The DCP (Digital Cinema Package), is the “digital file format” specific to projection in cinemas (since the disappearance of 35mm film copies in 2012). It is an international technical standard. Here is a summary of the best practices for (…)

Young people have not lost their heads

Eight years of scientific follow-up of adolescents in Finland, the philosophy of Michel Serres, and the endlessly repeated trial of a youth said to have been dumbed down by digital technology.

We keep hearing that digital technology is making young people more stupid. In 2026, Finnish researchers published the results of eight years of measurements that run counter to this judgement, and recent research, read closely, is far more (…)

ARTE - Training manufacture of a multimedia work

The Franco-German channel ARTE is, like all TV channels, changing the very nature of its activities. ARTE pioneered early on the web (with ARTE Live Web ARTE creative, etc.). These new programs, these new kinds of relationship to the public, and (…)

Enlarging the Silo

An account of the collective intelligence process carried out with Le Silo, in southern Essonne, from May to June 2026.

Around a reinforced concrete grain silo built in 1907, inhabitants, artists and heritage professionals worked together, from May to June 2026, to lay the foundations of a museography about ways of inhabiting the world. This is the story of how (…)

Afnic Foundation: films presenting the winning projects 2020

Nine films to present digital solidarity projects during the Covid-19 lockdown period in 2020, winners of the Fondation Afnic. MethodologyBecause of the lockdown and restrictions on movement, instead of traditional filming, we proposed to the (…)

Nature of reality in the digital age

Small kaleidoscope of thoughts about digital philosophy.

In my opinion, digital technology is not a subject that should be debated, that deserves to be positioned “for” or “against”. It is in fact an environment of existence, in the same way as nature, air, borders, economy, education... Digital (…)

Cultural Rights and Digital Discoverability

For a cultural policy adapted to digital spaces.

Faced with the failure of many institutional digital cultural strategies, cultural rights and its corollary cultural democracy seem to me to be very constructive tools. Here’s how. Limits and opportunities of digital discoverability policies (…)

"Create your own film on the memory of the neighborhood in Villejuif

Presentation of the project by Benoît Labourdette to the Villejuif City Council on February 9, 2023 (5’53s).

On February 9, 2023, the “citizen hour” of the Villejuif (Val de Marne) city council was devoted to culture for all in the city. Several projects were presented, including “Create your film on the memory of the neighborhood”, a film-making (…)

The workshop we will only run once

Against the assumption that long-term projects are the ideal of cultural mediation, and one-off actions a stopgap.

In the field of cultural mediation, long-term projects, with their repeated sessions and their progression accompanied over time, are often held to be the accomplished form of the work, while one-off actions, imposed by budgets or by the (…)

Cultural rights: what do they mean in practice?

Possible talks on cultural rights, for local authorities, culture departments, networks, and teams writing or revising a project.

Cultural rights have been part of French law since 2015 and 2016, they appear in almost every territorial cultural plan, and many professionals admit to me in private that they could not explain them to a colleague. Vocabulary has much to do with (…)

What digital technology is doing to the cultural sector

Food for thought.

Digital technology has now become one of the essential components of our living environment. How does it change our lifestyles and our representations of the world? And what could we take into account to evolve the cultural field toward greater (…)

Algorithms and Cultural Rights

How algorithms, far from confining us, implement cultural rights through democratic discoverability based on metadata.

Algorithms are regularly criticized as tools that supposedly lock us into “filter bubbles.” We must free ourselves from them, we are told. Yet when we use a music streaming platform like Spotify or Deezer and it offers us effortless musical (…)

RAG, or how to give an AI the power of a business tool

A technique that turns a general assistant into a tool specific to our work.

A RAG is what lets an artificial intelligence become a business tool, specific and relevant to our work. The word is technical, the principle is not, and Laurent Alexandre recently declared that a company head who does not know what it is should (…)

MJC Dole: “Image Education: Popular Education for the 21^st Century?”

Lecture by Benoît Labourdette for proposals for philosophical and practical tools of thought on the challenges of digital and images. The aim is to collectively equip themselves to carry out popular education initiatives in the 21st Century in (…)

Ciné Lab # 6: “New usages, digital cultures. What (R) evolution for cinemas?”

Day of reflection and common development of innovative projects, for cinema operators and mediators.The ACRIRA and the GRAC (Rhône Alpes region), within the framework of their “Ciné Lab # 6”asked me to participate in the animation of a day of (…)

Poitou-Charentes Region : “Pocket Films Training” for teachers

Red Pixel image pole of the Poitou Charentes region, proposed as part of “Lycéens in cinemas”, that one of the features of the program be replaced by a program of short films shot with mobile phone from the festival Takavoir, and students benefit (…)

« Artificial Intelligence and Creation: Stakes and Practices » (free book - UNESCO)

A perspective on a collective work to rethink transformation.

The publication “Artificial Intelligence and Creation: Stakes and Practices” (2025), the result of an unprecedented cooperation between eleven UNESCO Creative Cities from six countries, constitutes an interesting initiative designed to (…)

Lost Films : Upscaling and manufacturing of the DCP of the trailer of “Ryan’s Daughter”, by David Lean

Lost film distribution, a company headed by Marc Olry, releases in theaters in August 2013 Ryan’s Daughter, directed by David Lean (1970, with Robert Mitchum Sarah Miles, Christopher Jones).I was in charge of the upscaling and manufacturing (…)

9^th Forum of the look: “What is digital ?: The stakes of the new screens”

Animation of a conference by Benoît Labourdette on the issues of the new screens, October 8, 2010.“What is digital ? : The stakes of new screens”: this is the theme of the 3 days of training offered by écla Aquitaine on 6, 7 and 8 October (…)

Collection de connexions

Film collectif (4’34s, 2016).

Dans la nature, des objets partagent leurs vécus du numérique.

Mononormative Delegation

The same reflex of entrusting everything to a single entity runs through love, work, digital life and culture; artificial intelligence makes it both more dangerous and easier to undo.

We entrust our entire emotional balance to a single person, our entire memory to a single platform, our cultural representations to a single studio, and already part of our thinking to a single model. I propose to call this reflex mononormative (…)

“So what do we offer them?”

The isolation of professionals faced with young people’s screens, and the circulation of practices that already exist.

Professionals who work with young people often ask, in training courses, for tools to act on their screen practices. I hear in this request a loneliness at work as much as a need for technique: each person faces alone situations that colleagues, (…)

Reflection on the Evolution of Audiovisual Media in Libraries

For a citizen-driven heritage preservation of territorial audiovisual creations.

Libraries are facing the disappearance of physical audiovisual media. This technical transformation calls, in my view, for an anthropological redefinition of their missions (in the audiovisual field) around participatory creation and digital (…)

For a Permanent Cultural Transformation

Moving beyond political infantilization to rebuild our institutions.

Faced with budget cuts in arts education, cultural actors appeal to those in power. This posture of supplication reveals, in my view, a dead end. It is time to think differently about our action. The political choice to miseducateProfessional (…)

For a virtuous dispersal of the cultural sector

The end of traditional cultural influence.

The cultural sector is going through a major crisis that reveals a paradigm shift. In my opinion, we must now cultivate culture everywhere, in all sectors. A paradigm shift at workThe French cultural sector is in a phase of very great (…)

Digital traces as a link

The power of digital to bring people together.

The immediate sharing of activity traces (recordings, photos, mind maps) via an accessible digital space strengthens the connection between sessions, fosters participants’ autonomy, and enriches the collective memory of the group. The Importance (…)

OPC: “Culture, youth and digital” training

Designing new modalities for cultural and educational projects. March 2022.

A new concept of internship for cultural professionals, in order to build an opening to the public who have deserted the public and associative offer. By the Observatoire des Politiques Culturelles. Course led by Benoît Labourdette.Trainee (…)

Attention Reinvented

Ending the myth of the attentional deficit.

The prevailing discourse laments a “crisis of attention” caused by digital technology. But what if this reading overlooks a deeper transformation: the emergence of a new demand among citizens who have become creators? Attention: what are we (…)

Image Forum: conference “When digital creation enhances self-esteem”.

Active conference to equip social actors with digital skills to work on self-esteem with adolescents. Exchange of experiences and practices, and proposal of a lived experience.The [Image Forum-https://www.forumdesimages.fr/] organized the (…)

How do you get people who never talk to each other to work together?

Possible talks on collective intelligence and cooperation, for local authorities, networks, management teams, companies and organisations in transition.

Two departments of the same house that ignore each other, a network whose members only meet once a year, a merger that has put professional cultures foreign to one another under the same roof: the situations differ, the request is much the same. (…)

What words do to cultural policy

My situated account of a week-long symposium at Cerisy, and of what I learned there.

For a week, at Cerisy, researchers, artists, elected officials and practitioners confronted their ways of thinking about cultural policy. I offer here a crossing of that week through its words, because that is where everything is decided. By the (…)

The sovereign contribution wall

An online contribution wall whose contents belong to you, can be exported in full and remain accessible over time.

We are developing an online contribution wall: a space where a group posts texts, images, sounds and videos from a phone or a computer, during a workshop, a consultation, a training course or a participatory project. With sovereign hosting and (…)

Digital technology, a tool for mediation and cultural democracy

Webinar on Monday, October 9, 2023 from 10am to 1pm.

Restitution of the “Digital Workshops” project by Cultures du Cœur and Benoît Labourdette Production, offered as part of the Été culturel program with the support of the French Ministry of Culture.For the past 2 years, Cultures du Cœur, in (…)

Figra : “Digital writing and publishing”

Participation in a meeting on the issues of digital writing. Sharing of approaches and creations.TheFIGRA (International Festival of Great news report) invited me to a collaborative innovation moment on the theme of digital and interactive (…)

The Freinet method applied to digital mediation

Pedagogy and politics of autonomy.

The pedagogical method known as “Freinet” (conceptualized by the pedagogue Célestin Freinet from the 1920s to the 1960s, as a synthesis of pre-existing new pedagogies) is centered on doing, with tools, a purpose and autonomy for the students. (…)

SCAM : “Workshop about Digital Media Diffusion : basics and best practices”

Express Training about the basics and best practices of digital video, for the authors of the SCAM.The SCAM (Civil Society of Multimedia Authors) has for the first time offered its members technical training, because everyone is increasingly (…)

A web platform for collective intelligence

Support collective action with a specific digital tool.

Discovering the Power of a Web Platform Specifically Designed for Collective Intelligence Contribution, Through a Concrete Example. A Digital Solution to Overcome the Challenges of In-Person MeetingsI developed a web platform for contribution (…)

Our fragile memory

For a digital archiving policy.

Our lives are now inscribed in digital form: emails, photos, documents, etc. But this collective memory is excessively fragile. Without active archiving, our heritage disappears completely, threatening our history and our democracy. The new sites (…)

Regional meetings Passeurs d’images Rhône Alpes : production of a collective film for 80 people

Collaborative creation of a film for 80 people.The Regional Meetings of Image Passengers of the Rhône-Alpes Region, organized by Acrira (Amaury Piotin) at the cinema of La Turbine (Michel Caré and François Bonifacj) on October 7,2017, brought (…)

Afnic Foundation: presentation film of the foundation

A film by Benoît Labourdette (2’06s, 2021).

What is the Afnic Foundation? What is its history? From what observations on the realities of the digital world? What is its commitment? What are its actions? By Isabel Toutaud, Executive Director of the Afnic Foundation.

OPC Media: “What if we changed our posture?”

How can we learn to consider the richness of teenage digital practices and avoid giving in to preconceived ideas?

How can we learn to consider the richness of teenagers’ digital practices and not give in to preconceived ideas? For Benoît Labourdette, if we want to design cultural projects that are attentive to the aspirations of young people, and therefore (…)

The Present of the Future

From the critique of technological mythologies to the responsibility of action.

Criticizing the mythological discourses of AI giants from a position of superiority is not enough. The challenge is to act in the present to build the future we want. Technological mythologies: between marketing and world transformationIt is (…)

Permanent Photography

The image as a dimension of existence, no longer as a tool of life

Since a camera entered the phone that never leaves us, from 2005 onward, the image has stopped being an object we make at certain moments and has become a milieu we live within. I try to name this shift with a concept, permanent photography, and (…)

Ecology and Artificial Intelligence

Introduction to concrete awareness of the environmental impact of data centers.

The rise of AI is generating unprecedented ecological pressure on water and electricity resources. Facing this challenge, decentralization and reclaiming digital sovereignty appear as pathways to sustainable solutions. The Dialectics of (…)

Pre-covid

A film by Benoît Labourdette (1’, 2022).

A book that presents itself. Published just before the Covid-19 crisis, it reveals the techniques of mass manipulation that were employed during that crisis by governments and the mainstream media to gain public support for human rights abuses.

The contributive infrastructure for networks

One hour a week, drop-in, for a professional network to know itself better, cooperate and work on its robustness.

We are designing a system for maintaining cooperation across a professional network: a weekly one-hour videoconference meeting, which everyone attends freely, with no attendance requirement, backed by a contribution platform that keeps a record (…)

The desacralized aura of live performance

From the domination of aura to shared experience.

Aura is the power that radiates from a work and seizes us, and it is also what places us in a position of being dominated by it. The digital has shifted that aura from the original to its reproduction, and in doing so has desacralized the moment (…)

Cultivating digital sovereignty

For a democratic reclaiming of our digital spaces.

Faced with our growing dependence on tech giants, digital sovereignty is becoming a major democratic challenge. It’s time to act collectively. The foundations of digital sovereigntyDigital sovereignty refers to the ability of a State, (…)

“Careful, it’s slippery”

Making an ABC of the words at work in cultural policies.

At the Cerisy conference « Transformations of Cultural Policies », in June 2026, I built an online ABC of the words that were debated over six days. This is the story of how the object came to be, starting from a joke in the room, and of how a (…)

Perpetual exhibition

Cultural Rights and Digital Technology

Rethinking digital tools in service of cultural democracy.

How can digital technology become a lever for cultural emancipation rather than an instrument of dependence? I propose a digital implementation of the eight fundamental rights, to open concrete democratic pathways. From democratization to (…)

The artistic relationship with the audience

The paradoxical intimacy of live streams on social media.

Starting from the Belgian pop duo Candeur Cyclone on social media, I explore the dialectic of contemporary artistic encounters. Questioning our traditional conceptions of performance and connection with the audience. The Singularity of Digital (…)

Haute Savoie Department: “Digital technology and artistic and cultural practices through a pedagogical approach”

How to raise awareness in a very short time and in an active way about the creative potential of digital technology? FrameworkTh eDSDEN of Haute Savoie (National Education) organised on 12 February 2019 a departmental training and (…)

The Périfééries project’s heritage council of influence

Facilitating collective intelligence in a short space of time.

As part of Saint-Denis’s bid to become European Capital of Culture 2028, I led a collective intelligence session to collect proposals on the subject of “Making local residents active players, from the production to the editorialization of (…)

Moore’s Law

An empirical law of computing that has more impact than we imagine on professional audiovisual practices. Gordon MooreGordon Moore, a chemist by training, is one of the co-founders of the company Intel, manufacturing microprocessors that equip (…)

The Company, place of creation in Marseille : drone workshop

Inventing art forms, filmed with drone.The Company, place of contemporary art in Marseille, led by Paul-Emmanuel Odin, invited me to offer to local youth, in the central and very popular in Marseille where it is an audiovisual creative (…)

Afnic Foundation: films presenting the 2019 winning projects

Nine films to present a selection of 2019 winners from the Afnic Foundation for Digital Solidarity. AfnicAfnic is the Internet Registry of domain names in.fr. Its profits are donated to the Afnic Foundation, which supports projects that (…)

French Institute: “Training for new digital challenges”

Benoît Labourdette’s lecture on the benefits of cultural initiatives with pocket cameras.In May 2012, the Institut français proposed 3 days of training to its audiovisual associates and film correspondents around the world, on the subject of (…)

Digital restoration and build of the DCP of the feature film “The people” by Alex Van Warmerdam

The company ED Distribution has launched in theaters December 26, 2012 “The people” Dutch movie by Alex Van Warmerdam (1992), the twentieth anniversary of its realization.I supported the restoration of the digital master and manufactured the (…)

The Selfie, Mirror of Narcissus?

A Plea for Redefining Our Relationship to Images.

The omnipresence of the selfie raises questions: is it a sign of a narcissistic era? I argue, on the contrary, that this gesture, poorly understood, reveals a profound mutation in our relationship to the world, to time, and to others. The Social (…)

Banning social media for under-15s

The symptom of adult domination, or how to deal with it.

The law banning social media for minors under 15 was passed by France’s National Assembly on the night of January 26–27, 2026. Rather than simply deploring it, I propose here to understand it as a symptom — that of adult domination — and to draw (…)

The last straw

Why the anger against artificial intelligence rarely aims at the right target.

We hear a great deal these days that artificial intelligence is destroying jobs, and the anger against it keeps growing. I would like to shift the focus. What is happening did not begin with AI but forty years ago, with personal computing, and AI (…)

Towards a distributed cultural sector

Hypotheses on the commons and digital diversity.

What if digital cultures showed us how to build the commons through distribution rather than centralization? This hypothesis invites us to rethink cultural fragmentation not as a threat but as an opportunity. Digital technology as a laboratory (…)

IPM PACA: “Creative potentialities and conquest of new audiences with digital”

Conference on the creative potential and the conquest of new audiences that digital allows, in the context of the launch of the call for projects “Identities Paths and Memory” (IPM) in the PACA Region. “Path and Memory Identities”Since 2002, (…)

Gaîté Lyrique : mobility and creation seminar

Benoît Labourdette’s conference (full video) : “The mobile audiovisual creativity: challenges and opportunities.” (36 minutes)Introduction of the conferenceAlmost everyone has a camera in his pocket at all times, into his mobile phone. (…)

Experimenting together to become autonomous: seven years with the cultural affairs department of Les Lilas

Ville des Lilas (Seine-Saint-Denis, France). An overall account of a long-term support of the city’s cultural affairs department, from 2017 to 2024, within the framework of a cooperation agreement between the city and the department of Seine-Saint-Denis.

From 2017 to 2024, I worked alongside the cultural affairs department of Les Lilas on youth, mediation and digital practices. Workshops, training sessions, a video platform, business tools, a “mediation compass”: all these actions were held (…)

Rencontres photographiques d’Arles : “Pedagogy of the digital image” (conference)

Podcast of the conference.

Development of practical and creative thinking in the pedagogy of images, with digital photography.July 8, 2013, invited by Jean-Yves Moirin and Francis Jolly in the Seminar of the Photographic Encounters, I proposed a conference on the (…)

Rethinking youth culture

From democratization to cultural democracy.

Cultural institutions often fail to reach youth. To reverse this trend, we must move from cultural democratization to cultural democracy, recognizing the diversity of practices. The Eternal MisunderstandingIt is striking to note that Hesiod, (…)

Cinematheque of Martigues : “From the sensitive to the camera”

The Cinematheque of Martigues offers a program of films by Benoît Labourdette. “From the sensitive to the camera”Benoît Labourdette’s film program, from April 1 to 15, 2017, as part of the exhibition “Films in the Pockets”.Presentation text (…)

The work of art in the age of digital mediation

Conceptual update of Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935).

During an experiment in artistic mediation integrating digital techniques, it became clear to me that the typologies of status and function of artistic works that Walter Benjamin defined in 1935 are now being modified by digital practices of (…)

Zero and one

Liability and computer backup

To stop turning our backs on our future.

Computer backup is often neglected due to a lack of understanding and the illusion of the ubiquity of digital data. This unawareness exposes us to significant technical, economic, and personal vulnerabilities. I’m not going to bother with that! (…)

Forum des images : Film and digital video training

The Forum des Images cultural institution in the city of Paris, is a cultural place of film programming, offers a collection of films about Paris and beyond, as well as many resources on its website. The teams face very directly to rapid changes (…)

CEFPF : Formation « Concevoir, réaliser, financer des contenus pour les nouveaux médias »

Stage de 5 semaines (formation en présentiel, à distance ou mixte).

Cette formation approfondie proposée par le CEFPF, dont le formateur référent est Benoît Labourdette, permet l’appropriation des nouveaux langages, technologies et pratiques de l’audiovisuel numérique, dans une perspective de construction (…)

Sovereignty or Security?

Digital responsibility put to the test of reality.

The fire at a state data center in South Korea in September 2025 proves human fragility in the face of digital storage. Between risky sovereignty and secure dependency, what price are we willing to accept for our digital heritage? The Illusion of (…)

For a Political Consciousness of Digital Technology

When our technological choices shape tomorrow’s world.

Every click, every application used, every digital service adopted constitutes a political act that participates in building our collective future, far beyond our individual uses. Digital technology as an artificial environment of existenceI (…)

The idea factory: “We tested a 360° camera shooting”

Article on thethe blog of the Canope Media Library about a virtual reality filmmaking workshop led by Benoît Labourdette.We tested a 360° camera shooting - The idea factory We tested a 360-degree camera shootingNUMOK, the digital festival (…)

Sovereign Digital, a Micropolitical Choice

Escaping the Hegemonic Imaginary of Digital Tools.

Our daily choices of digital tools lock us into a capitalist imaginary. Moving from Microsoft to Free Software is not just a technical issue: it is a political act. Why and how. The Unconsciousness of Our DependencyWe are prisoners of a (…)

Beyond walls: video as a vehicle for cultural democracy

When digital mediation transforms the relationship between citizens and heritage.

Video in museums represents a challenge of cultural mediation and the democratization of heritage. In the digital age, it transforms the relationship between audiences and institutions, allowing citizens to actively participate in the (…)

Why don’t young people come to us?

Possible talks on the cultural practices of 15-25 year-olds, for cultural teams, youth services, networks and local authorities.

This is the question I am asked most often, and it rarely comes alone. Behind it there is sometimes a territorial cultural plan that mentions students without knowing where to start, sometimes a hundred and fifty staff members from very different (…)

Not judging people’s digital practices

Non-judgment and non-hierarchization as conditions for mediation.

Judgment damages the very connection that mediation seeks to build. It goes hand in hand with a more subtle hierarchization, which places the practitioner above those they accompany. These two movements close what they claim to open. To loosen (…)

Afnic Foundation: 2022 greeting film

A film by Benoît Labourdette (1’50s, 2021).

Wishing solidarity for the coming year, through a lively return on the many projects helped by the Afnic Foundation for digital solidarity. The AfnicAfnic is the Internet Registry for .fr domain names. Its profits are donated to the Afnic (…)

“The Long Tail”: Cultural Diversity in the Digital Age

Tool for the design of cultural projects.

The “long tail” is one of the essential concepts of the Internet economy. Contrary to popular belief, on the Internet it is the great diversity of a myriad of confidential works that produces an essential part of the revenues, and this over the (…)

Conformism versus Sovereignty

The comfort of digital dependence versus the requirement of data mastery.

Our digital lives rely on standardized tools. While this conformism simplifies usage, it exposes us to a loss of control. Let us reflect on this societal choice that shapes our collective future more than we think. The Seduction of Digital (…)

Fondation Afnic: films presenting winning projects 2022

5 films directed by Benoît Labourdette.

Short films presenting a selection of projects supported by the Afnic Foundation for Digital Solidarity in 2022, for broadcast on social networks and project promotion.In 2022, the Afnic Foundation supported 81 projects, for a total amount of (…)

Design of a professional day on “Artistic and digital practices for young people”

Act’art, artistic and cultural action in Seine-et-Marne.

As part of its mission to promote collective intelligence by facilitating local think tanks, Act’art asked Benoît Labourdette to design, co-construct and co-host a collaborative professional day on the theme of “Artistic and digital practices for (…)

Nantes métropole: “Cultural and digital mediation in common” meeting

Animation by Benoît Labourdette of a day of sharing digital mediation tools for cultural and digital mediators in the city of Nantes. September 17, 2019. Intentions and MeansIn order to transmit digital mediation tools that can be effective, (…)

Presence and earth

A short introduction to critical thinking on the eco-capitalist doxa.

We are present on Earth, nourished by it, yet we exploit it without coherence. Our so-called ecological awareness is accompanied by a blindness to the real impacts of our technological lifestyles. Three definitions of EarthEarth refers (…)

The technology behind web-documentary

What is a web documentary?A web documentary is an interactive audio-visual object, consisting of photographs, sounds, text, video ... which is accessed with a computer, tablet, phone ... In the case of a tablet or phone consultation with the (…)

Westward direction

Collective film (7’30s, 2019).

Digital things whisper their existence in our ears.

Travelling Rennes 2021: “Cinema and festivals in the age of containment: inspiring innovations”

Professional meeting led by Benoît Labourdette (duration: 1h35’).

How can we draw inspiration for the future of film exhibition from innovative projects carried out during the period of confinement in 2020?Professional meeting led by Benoît Labourdette, filmmaker, educator, expert in new media and cultural (…)

« Ma Grande Guerre, regard d’enfant » - C’est mon patrimoine - Musée de la Grande Guerre de Meaux

Réinvestir son lien à l’Histoire par la réalisation de films d’animation. Ateliers pour enfants au Musée de la Grande Guerre de Meaux, dans le cadre de « C’est mon patrimoine 2021 ». Le projetLe Musée de la Grande Guerre de Meaux, qui existe (…)

Cultural investigation with artificial intelligence

An open, non-directive investigation method, based on spontaneous dialogues analysed by artificial intelligence, to discover what one would not have thought of looking for.

We are developing a method and a tool for cultural investigation that start from informal speech rather than from questionnaires: spontaneous dialogues, gathered over time, which artificial intelligence helps analyse without a predefined (…)

About the “new” images

A critical reflection on technological innovation and real cultural transformation.

Between ephemeral fashion effects and genuine artistic revolutions, “new images” often reveal more about our relationship to the present than to the future, and often more about the seduction of fashion than constructive innovation for the (…)

TMNLab: “Digital technology is not a subject that deserves a position for or against...” - Benoît Labourdette

Podcast of the meeting with Benoît Labourdette at the TMNLab café on March 9, 2023 (1h08’).

At the invitation of Anne Le Gall, exchange with Benoît Labourdette on innovative and agile working methods for the cultural sector, thanks to digital tools, for a change of posture and openness to the interests of audiences, young people in (…)

My creative work, my singular way of doing it, my regularity, this is my essential work.

Maybe there are not many visitors on my website. But how many visitors are there in a museum for an artist? And then I build in the long tail. Anyway, everything is fine.

Mediathemes magazine: “Technologies and contemporary uses of moving images”

Short techno-sociological history of cinema.

Moving images seem so natural and omnipresent that we are sometimes not very aware that they are in fact intrinsically linked to very concrete technologies, which have a strong impact on their content, more than we want to believe. For example, (…)

Ministry of Culture (France) : National Consultation on Arts and Cultural Education

The Ministry of Culture and Communication (France) launched in November 2012 a “National Consultation on Arts Education” to “enable all young people, in all territories, access to art and culture, from early childhood to university.”I was one (…)

Télécran

Un film de Benoît Labourdette (2’00s, 2020).

Une innovation du passé qui vient nous rendre visite.

“The flavor of data”: for a phenomenology of digital autonomy

Sentiment of dependency and digital sovereignty.

In the contemporary digital ecosystem, our apparent freedom of use conceals a structural and total dependence on platforms. This illusion of autonomy masks the disappearance of our individual and collective sovereignty. The invisible (…)

Chaillot Augmenté x TMNlab 2026: two days on the performing arts and digital technology

A presentation and critical reading of the gathering held at Chaillot on 5 and 6 May 2026, in which I am taking part.

On 5 and 6 May 2026, Chaillot, Théâtre National de la Danse, hosts the second edition of the « Chaillot Augmenté x TMNlab Meetings: Performing arts and digital environments » conference. Around thirty speakers from France, Germany, Belgium, the (…)

Artificial intelligence is an opportunity for free and experimental cinema

AI offers humanity the opportunity to reclaim its place.

Artificial intelligence is a threat to the professional academic sector that produces blockbusters and other commercially driven films, and an opportunity for free and experimental cinema. When the machine can do better than humansFilms aimed (…)

"Culture, youth and digital: designing new modalities for cultural and educational projects

Sharing of methodological tracks and professional training.

Deconstructing preconceived ideas about digital transformation and developing projects adapted to young people.The cultural offer is sometimes questioned in a brutal way by the “young” public. A questioning that manifests itself in particular (…)

“Territorial approach, participation, youth and digital technology”: interview of Benoît Labourdette by Serge Saada (52’, 2021)

Observatory of cultural mediation in the social field.

As part of the Observatory of cultural mediation in the social field, Serge Saada interviewed Benoît Labourdette on the impact of the proliferation of digital images on young people and the public in general. Here is the soundtrack of the video. (…)

The world seen from the construction site

Series of 21 digital photographs.

What is the city about? To look at the world? Or to be this world that looks at itself and creates itself by looking at itself?The building that houses the editorial office of Le Monde, which until recently was under construction, is located (…)

Documentary on Big Screen : Digital Cinema Training

I led the team for the association Documentary on Big Screen a two-day training on technologies “Digital Cinema”.Documentary on Big Screen is an association that supports the documentary in theaters and its dissemination in general, through (…)

Towards renewed cultural mediation for young people

Cultural rights and the digital age.

Digital practices of youth: legitimate cultural expressions for rethinking mediation and building a renewed cultural democracy. A necessary paradigm shiftThe relationship between youth and digital technology constitutes a major challenge for (…)

The elsewhere of the in-itself

Conceptual and methodological proposal for complementarities between in situ and remote cultural projects.

The Covid-19 crisis revealed the potential of remote cultural mediation, but it seems that the public cultural sector has largely returned to focusing on physical presence. I propose a complementary approach between the “in-itself” (digital and (…)

Cooperative Narratives

Creating polyphonic narrative devices to transform academic knowledge into living and operative knowledge.

How can we overcome the limits of academic narrative to create truly shared knowledge? A concrete experience of collective writing devices that restore narrative power to participants. The form of narrative as epistemological matrixIn her (…)

OPC : The digital transition in professional and amateur cultural practices

Master 2 “Management of cultural projects” (Science Po Grenoble - OPC)

The digital practices of citizens are changing the meaning of cultural proposals, both public and private. The paradigm of access to culture has shifted and remains in motion. A training day to provide tools to consider cultural projects with (…)

Activating collective intelligence with digital tools

Method and stakes, from the analysis of a contribution session held on 11 June 2026

How does one actually activate the collective intelligence of a group? Drawing on the analysis of a session run over videoconference and supported by a digital contribution platform, I set out the conditions that make such approaches work, from (…)

CEFPF :“Designing, producing and financing interactive transmedia content” training course (2017)

Vocational training on technologies and strategies for developing transmedia projects.For the eighth year, I am the referent trainer of this 5-week professional training course at CEFPF (European Film Production Training Centre), intended (…)

Podcasts for the Afnic Foundation’s 2025 call for projects

Formatting qualified information.

Production of three podcasts to help better qualify projects submitted to the Afnic Foundation. Supporting the Afnic FoundationWe have been supporting the Afnic Foundation for several years in communicating about the projects they fund, (…)