About

Hi! I’m Léontine, I am a 23 year old French Digital design student based in Paris. I'm currently studying in Master 2 Design, creation, projet, transdisciplinarity in residency at the Mobilier national after studying in DSAA Design and Digital Creation at l’École Estienne. I have an interdisciplinary profile and I take a particular interest in working at the intersection between virtual and physical world.

My main research focuses on creating bridges between distinct areas. I especially am interested in the links between new technologies, the natural environment and human sensibility, which has been a large part of our reflections throughout our research thesis collection "Transitional Spaces". Convinced about the influence the design can have while building a more positive and sustainable futur, exploring future stakes of new technologies is one of the most important drivers for me. Whether through collaborative projects, installations, reflections on its practices or its documentary and mediation potential.

Contact

2018 — Entre deux

Entre deux is a video project. It is a contemplative reflection on transhumanism. It questions the frontiers of human-machine relations through movement, and more particularly dance.

The choreography begins with jerky, robotic movements, for both the dancer and the drone. Their movements are similar, like a mime game. As time goes by, the dance becomes more and more fluid, so that the body and the drone respond to each other, until they merge. Colours are neutral and pure. White symbolizes as much the technical tool as a spiritual figure, purely human (marriage, union).

Project realized in collaboration with Chloé Michel, Loriane Cateloy-Rose and the Espace Albatros, Montreuil.

2018 — Internship report

I did this internship at Brokendoll, it is a digital agency in Stockholm, Sweden. The agency work focus mainly on digital creative direction. I also had the opportunity to participate to the shooting of a Chinese live TV show called « The Amazing Race » which was a crazy experience.

I used the Japanese technique for binding the two copies I made. I particularly worked on the colors and texture of the paper, which I wanted to be both « neutrals, naturals » in order to reminds the colors of Sweden, but with some touch of neon colors to reminds the digital part.
I also wanted to work on the parallel between the physical report and its digital dimension in the content, that’s why I made an augmented edition. As we can see in the gifs, some images get animated. What I found interesting in the experience of this internship was the atmosphere of Stockholm, that’s what I tried to retransmit with making « mood » or ambiance video throughout the report.

2020 — Heart rate sensor

The installation is an experimental project, working thanks to the heartbeat of the user. We welded pieces of metal and used La Malinette to make the heart rate sensor work.

We wanted to make it water a plant at the rhythm of a heatbeat, but the workshop was really short. So we just had time to make that little installation, which is still an interesting interaction to play with.

Projet in collaboration with Léo Laffargue.

2018 — Empreintes

Empreinte is a digital publication that regroups content about Les Estiennales.
Les Estiennales is an event which takes place each year in our school. It lasts a few days during which every student and teacher can attend to some conferences all day long and there is a cosplay at the end of the week. The theme change every year, and this year it was « En marge » which means « marginal, side note » but we can also read it as « outsider ». We thought we can be outsider because we are outside a groupe, and also within a group. But in any case, the word outsider implies a groupe.

This is what inspires us to create different groups (red, blue, yellow), made physical by creating spots throughout the school. We put some markers on three different places, which allows access to an augmented reality landscape. The content (usually videos) would then be accessible by scanning and interacting with these augmentations.

Projet in collaboration with Léo Laffargue and Jean-Baptiste Krauss (interaction) ; Hortense Brassart and Clara Hinoveau (illustration).

2020 — Cærulean

Cærulean blue is a pigment used in painting, giving a shade of sky blue. Its color remains even in candlelight, which make it, according to an old term, a light blue..

Cærulean is the project of a reconnection between humain being, natural environnement and new technologies, aiming to approach our digital spaces in a new, more sensitive way.

Throughout this project, we want you to travel between two spaces, physical space and virtual space, through sensitive exchanges, an experience of the passing time and the present moment.

This journey proposes to think about virtual interfaces in a different way than with only functional solutions. We position ourselves in a process of reflection, proposing solutions for a digital oriented on the feelings and rhythms of nature. Questioning our current spaces and those of tomorrow.

This reflection takes the form of a glossary in which we organized different possibilities of graphic answers.

Project in collaboration with Mathilde Käppler and Léo Bindner.

2020 — æ identity

With Mathilde and Léo, we made this identity for our diplôma collective. Our main research direction was about space. Most particularly about the fact that the digital world blurs the boundaries between spaces. We inhabit the world at the same time physically and virtually, which affects our experience of the world, the way we see it, our senses and landmarks.
So for the identity of our collective, we choose to focus on space, and on the biological rhythm of the sun, while using neutral colors to let the environment bright by itself.

To highlight this biological rhythm and the relationship to time that it induces, we worked on our identity according to a grid representing a daytime. Each element takes place on it at the exact time they were created. This sometimes generates incongruous superpositions that are interesting to observe.

For our master thesis, the layout follow the rhythm of a day. With each turn of a page, the elements rise at in the east, rise up into the sky and sets in the west. There is no page number, it’s the sun which defines where we are in the thesis.
You can download my entire thesis here (in french) : : 🌫
Or acces to the digital tiré-à-part of our research thesis collection, "Transitional Spaces" here (in french too): ⬛

Project in collaboration with Mathilde Käppler and Léo Bindner.

2020 — Être vivant.e.s

The French Institut created a collection of sound stories from all over the world. Everyone was invited to tell his « idea of the night ». These sound contributions were crafted by men and women from a lot of countries, related by their French language learning. Our rôle was to value them for the public of the event La Nuit des idées.

While listening to these stories, we realized that the rare women referenced were telling stories either introspective, about intimate sphere (inside the house), either about a transgression to go outside, a forbidden situation for women. Why, while we ask people from all around the world to tell their night, the women are not speaking about the outside? For us, he answer was related and part of a militant contexte : the fact that for women, the night is in the first instance a synonym of insecurity.

Many times, women are reduced to their bodies. We look at them more often than listen to them. We wanted to create a place were they can express themselves. According to what we hear, we imagined a course from inside (symbolizing introspection) to outside (freedom of action). From individual to collective.

The sound spacialisation take place in three places. First, a one-people interactive installation where people has to skim only. Then a two-people needed interaction, on a curtain symbolizing the « outside-gaze » and a frontier to pass outside, where the interaction has to be collaborative to work (people have to hold hands to ear the sound).

Project in collaboration with Alexiane Capitaine (Estienne), Valentine Chartrin and Marine Tréhello (INA).

2018 — Time capsule

"In 2419, one hundred years after the great migration, human beings no longer live on earth. All memories have been destroyed so as not to repeat mistakes of the past. Twelve individuals who do not know each other one day receive a strange message informing them that they must retrieve a capsule somewhere, in search of their origin. Someday, someone will read."

Silvotherapy, or tree therapy, comes from Japan, where it's commonly known as "Shinrin-Yoku". This traditional practice consists of immersing oneself in nature and making one's senses work in contact with the forest.This is the scientific concept that I chose to encapsulate for the exhibition "News from the Future" at La Cité des Sciences, Paris.

My time capsule is composed of plates of earth (ceramic) representing the different types of forests around the world. The visitors of the exhibition are invited to touch, manipulate and move the ceramic plates. Modelled in Arielle de Gasquet ceramics studio (whom I thank again for her help) so that they can be pleasant and interesting to touch, with matt and glossy glazes. The shapes and patterns differ on each, referencing the particularities of each floor.
These plates, once augmented (AR), show the fossils of the different types of vegetation that populate the Earth in 2018 and let their peculiarities characterize their inhabitants.

The experience, accompanied by a new one, gives a glimpse of the beauty of natural diversity and the need for contact with "nature" (of which it is a part) for human beings.

2018 — Astro Noise

In an increasingly globalised world, where everything is going faster and faster, and above all where Internet access and other digital cables are taking over public spaces, we must remain vigilant to the problems raised by digital technologies. In times of crisis, and under the threat of terrorism, many actions are taken to "prevent" the danger, but then benefiting the implementation of increasingly intrusive measures concerning privacy. Behind this mask lies a phenomenon that is present in all consciences, but against which we are not yet acting enough: mass surveillance. Astro Noise is an awareness campaign aiming to warn and encourage action on this currently neglected subject.

Astro Noise is my first diploma project (second year). After many investigations on the subject, it appeared to me that the best formula to reach the goal I had set for the campaign: "to warn and encourage action about mass surveillance" was an interactive web-series.
Each episode offers a different interaction to the user, encouraging him to become aware of the intrusiveness of mass surveillance and his place in it. Whether by the inclusion of the user's webcam in the video, the interactive manipulations he has to do, the use of his data accessible for a websites (type of computer, location, tastes...). The video example below is taken from an episode on the importance of privacy. Aiming to fight the myth of « if I don't do anything wrong I have nothing to hide. »

LThe project oscillates between experimental and documentary. Formally, the visuals are experimental in order to capture attention when they appear on social networks, be playful thanks to the interactions, and to encourage people to share them. In terms of content, the contents are educational, documented and clearly explained.

2019 — Poissons quantiques

« Poissons quantiques » is the name that Julien Bobroff (University Paris-Sud) chose for his talk on quantum physics. It means "Quantum Fishes", in French, and evokes the erratic but law-governed behavior of large shoals of fish, which allow him to explain the behaviour of objects on a quantum scale. It is this search for metaphors and his desire to make complex concepts intelligible that led him to call upon us, with the aim of « augmenting » his conference. He asked us to create a device that would help, or illustrate his point.

We wondered how we could use the physicist's tools, such as the oscilloscope, to create a visual narrative and explain differently? It was indeed important to us that they reflect the content as well as the scientific character of the narration.

So we imagined a visual device on an oscilloscope. We designed 3d objects as well as animations of scientific diagrams, helping to understand and retain the discourse, which we translated into sound waves. Then, thanks to the OsciStudio software, transcribed on the screen of the oscilloscope, with the help of which Julien could play with the visuals live.

Project in collaboration with Emma Pustienne and Jean-Baptiste Krauss.