Samuel TRONÇON. Philosopher.
Researcher in computer science applied to social sciences.

PhD in philosophy and theoretical computer science.

Born 1973, from Sandro and Simha. French and Italian nationalities. A pure product of the early x generation, fed with VHS movies, audio tapes, video games, computers and code lines, indie rock, and comics.

Classical music school from 8 till 18. ZX81 programmer at 10, and then CPC464, and later MacOS, and later Unix. Reading a lot during youth, everything, at all time: from Camus, Fanon, Vallès, Proudhon, Cioran, Miller, Dumont, Schumacher, all the parents' library, even Marx and the Bible, Elle Magazine and Fluide Glacial. Politically committed at 15, with intensive experience in political organizations, and fired from the party school because of mistrust in childish historic lies given by compromised adults. Find, for a time, my place in activists groups essentially composed by depressive talentuous old beatniks (who were my high school teachers the day). At 17, read for the first time "La pesanteur et la grâce", changing-life encounter with Simone Weil.

At 18, study law and economics at the university, but spent the most important part of time playing music and discovering new horizons: Pasolini, Reich, Eno, Abramovicz, Monk, Bacon, Jodorowsky, Hesse and Mann, Michaux, Stockhausen, Coltrane, Shakti, Fela Kuti, Bharata Natyam, and so many others treasures... Entering Sciences Po Aix at 20, but fired 8 months later, after having refused to ask stupid questions just for the grade : a crime in this temple of the speech-even-when-nothing-to-say skill. Many thanks for that repulse, it was my momentum ! Stop studying and want to do something real and useful. Proceed to National Service with civilian affectation as an educator, from 21 till 23.

Back to the university (thanks to the ever-convincing Arnaud Rey) at 22, both in Philosophy and Psychology Licences. Became a very good worker-student, never present in the classrooms, but all-reading the bibliography. First-time father at 24, and as a pragmatic corollary, Cultural Manager the same year. High-school philosophy teacher at 25. Two years later, Master in Philosophy and Logic with honours, and first company created.

So a challenging moment when the respected philosopher Pierre Livet accepted me as his doctoral student, and said the mathematician Girard would never accept my project, because absolutely no philosopher could approach him without being atomised in space. "Try the impossible, it's your job, and it could open a very new philosophical approach". Two months later, so an incredible moment the day I've crossed by chance the famous Jean-Yves Girard on the Cours Julien, and he accepted to take me into his research team after 5 hours of a very intense discussion about the sense of all things we know, in the streets of Marseille.

By consequence, obtain a doctoral fellowship at 27, and a position in one of the world's best Theoretical Computer Science Labs, at the heart of the Calanques Reserve. So many thanks to you Jean-Yves and Pierre for these years.

At 28, Assistant Lecturer both in Mathematical Logic (for philosophers) and Philosophy of Language (for mathematicians). PhD at 32 with honours, after the longest defence I've seen in my life, and second-time father a few days later: by chance, it was not before. Understand brutally there is also bad-intentionned people in science (they will recognize themselves !), thanks to the good Philippe Minh for having opened my eyes.

Just after the PhD, five years post-doctoral researcher, working on many different projects in computational linguistics and social modelling, still between Paris, Roma, Marseille... Colloquium, congress, applications, projects, talks and posters, credits management absurdities, until the overdose. So interesting research topics, so bad working conditions for fundamental and multi-disciplinary research... Stop public research.

Creating a second company near 40. Connecting a lot with Contemporary Art, especially following the net.art way and fruitful collaborations with great spirits like Christophe Bruno. Realizing that things are sometimes closer than we can imagine between Art and Science, poetry happening and network dynamics, History of ideas and Art History. Also accomplish a lot of Digital Humanities projects, sometime for Humanities Labs, sometime for start-ups, or just for my own serendipity. From 2012 till 2019, working hard in Beijing, Taipei, Paris, Lyon and forming a new chapter in Arles since 2016.

Last company created at 50. Working now on democratic sustainability, Art, IA and Politics. Preparing big new projects in art, science and participative governance. Writing a new book about "creative processes in art viewed from mathematics". Writing also a collection of small books about computers, IA, intuition and truth.
Follow my linkedin page if you want to know more.



CEO and founder of SCIC SAS ANANKE (La coopérative des transitions)
CEO and founder of SARL RR&D (Arles)
Digital Humanities, policy analytics and evaluation.
Founder of the non-profit Résurgences Insertion (Arles, Marseille)
Social inclusion and training programs in web development, for long-term unemployed people and migrants.
Board officer of the non-profit Rencontres de Rochebrune sur les systèmes complexes naturels et artificiels
International Scientific Encounters about the artifical and natural complex systems, each year since 1992.
President of the non-profit Parade (Arles)
Artistic, cultural and environmental activities for all audiences, at the heart of the city of Arles.
President of Circuit-Court Productions (Marseille) :
Experimental movies production and found-footage heritage.
Board Member of the SYNESI (Syndicat National des Employeurs Spécifiques d'Insertion)
Board Member of the UDES-PACA (Union des employeurs de l'économie sociale et solidaire)



Below are the main achievements in which I have been involved till now. If you don't find a reference, it's probably because I've had to make choices and/or I can't update this page often. You can message me to find out more.

Articles and books

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Detection and classification of vocal productions in large scale audio recordings Author

We propose an automatic data processing pipeline to extract vocal productions from large-scale natural audio recordings. Through a series of computational steps (windowing, creation of a noise class, data augmentation, re-sampling, transfer learning, Bayesian optimisation), it automatically trains a neural network for detecting various types of natural vocal productions in a noisy data stream without requiring a large sample of labeled data. We test it on two different data sets, one from a group of Guinea baboons recorded from a primate research center and one from human babies recorded at ho  [...]

Preprint Arxiv

Supporting participatory policy making with an integrated digital platform: the e-coopilot approach Author

Participatory policy making, in multi-stakeholders, inter-sectoral and multi-level contexts, is an intricate process which requires addressing various needs, constraints and steps. Moreover, beyond the in-presence protocols which we have implemented, for a sake of social extension (“massification”), autonomization and compliance with current practices, the switch to digital solutions is obviously required. For participants who are often reluctant to engage in a long, complex and sometimes doubtful pathway, it appears crucial to support them step after step in the decision procedure, to val  [...]

Mathématique du dialogue

Mathématique du dialogue Author

Ce livre présente des travaux menés sur la question de l’interaction dans le langage par cinq chercheurs pluridisciplinaires, réunis par une réflexion autour des progrès récents de l’informatique théorique dans leur relation avec les sciences humaines et sociales. Les auteurs abordent les bases de la théorie mathématique de l’interaction dans le contexte d’une grammaire des dialogues et montrent que les principaux concepts (polarité, localisation, convergence) renouvellent notre conception des objets linguistiques. Dépassant le périmètre réservé du dialogue, le modèle p  [...]

Editions Hermann
Singularités, objectivité et performativité en sciences sociales

Singularités, objectivité et performativité en sciences sociales Author

Cet article a pour objet de proposer une double articulation pour l'analyse des systèmes théoriques en SHS qui permette une interaction facilitée avec l'informatique et les sciences de la nature, et qui donne des clefs épistémologiques pour étudier l'évolution de ces systèmes, leurs particularités et leurs adaptations possibles aux objets étudiés. Sans pouvoir être exhaustifs, nous tentons de proposer des ouvertures, en nous basant sur la logique et la géométrie de la connaissance, et en tenant compte de la spécificité des sciences humaines et sociales.

Revue JIMIS
Speech Acts with Ludics

Speech Acts with Ludics Author

In this paper, we attempt to show that recent developments in proof theory, especially with ludics, are relevant for the study and the formalization of speech acts. This logical framework does not deal with truth values but with proofs, and this opens a new way for taking in charge the performative part of linguistic utterances. After having presented two models of speech acts and what theoretical elements we will hold as relevant for our own model, we introduce the ludical point of view by defining a speech acting conceptualization which renders some determinations not presented in t  [...]

Editions Springer
Dialogues in ludics

Dialogues in ludics Author

In this text we expose and defend the following claim: Ludics is a relevant framework to ensure both the formalisation and another way for studying dialogues. Once our model presenting a not formal notion of dialogue, and explaining the correspondance with some core concepts in Ludics has been introduced, we give a light technical presentation of Ludics, focusing on the most relevant points for the study of formal dialogues : objects, actions and interactions. At last, we present the concrete part of the model with some examples of dialogues in ludics.

Editions Springer
Éléments de sémiotique cognitive

Éléments de sémiotique cognitive Author

La question de la signification se pose aux confluents de la philosophie, de l'étude du langage, de la logique et de la cognition. Notre problème consiste à  fournir un modèle, conceptuel et formel, dans lequel les ancrages anthropologiques de la signification (la discursivité, l'interaction, la normativité) puissent être pris en compte sans céder de terrain à  un réductionnisme aveugle. C'est à  partir d'observations sur la vie du signe que nous en venons à  penser qu'aucun obstacle n'empêche une théorie formelle de la signification, même si une telle théorie ne peut r  [...]

Editions Hermann
Dynamique du langage et ontologie

Dynamique du langage et ontologie Author

Nous proposons une conjecture qui vise à  explorer les possibilités d'une théorie de la signification qui ne se baserait ni sur l'analyse des énoncés du langage, ni sur les références objectives de nos énoncés. Cette conjecture est permise par de récents progrès logiques qui donnent les bases nécessaires notamment à  la fondation d'une signification par l'usage, dans un système conventionnaliste et holiste. L'intérêt d'une telle démarche, outre l'élabo- ration d'un modèle conceptuel, est de permettre une autre fondation de la communication inter-humaine et de l'appr  [...]

Actes des Rencontres Internationales de Rochebrune
La vie des preuves

La vie des preuves Author

Nous proposons une conjecture qui vise à  explorer les possibilités d'une théorie de la signification qui ne se baserait ni sur l'analyse des énoncés du langage, ni sur les références objectives de nos énoncés. Cette conjecture est permise par de récents progrès logiques qui donnent les bases nécessaires notamment à  la fondation d'une signification par l'usage, dans un système conventionnaliste et holiste. L'intérêt d'une telle démarche, outre l'élaboration d'un modèle conceptuel, est de permettre une autre fondation de la communication interhumaine et de l'apprentissage.  [...]

Revue Sens Public
Interaction et signification

Interaction et signification Author

La logique moderne est traversée par de nombreuses lignes de démarcation, dont aucune ne permet de mesurer l'étendue réelle du domaine. Par l'accumulation de ces oppositions duales, on atteint une sorte de saturation du débat qui fait passer au second plan l'objet pour ne retenir que les querelles de clocher et les positions dogmatiques. On connaît par exemple l'opposition entre classiques et intuitionnistes, qui n'est pas sans lien avec celle des formalistes et des constructivistes, ou encore la non moins célèbre distinction entre théorie des modèles, théorie de la démonstration  [...]

Éditions de la Sorbonne
Dynamique des démonstrations et théorie de l'interaction

Dynamique des démonstrations et théorie de l'interaction Author

Le modèle analytique voit dans la logique une langue transcendant les usages, et fonde ainsi l'intersubjectivité de la signification. Le paradigme procédural la conçoit plutôt comme formalisation des processus de construction de la connaissance. C'est donc un renversement qui fait du langage un simple moyen de description et de la processualité une nouvelle normativité. Fruit de l'énorme bond en avant produit par la découverte de la dynamique des preuves et de l'isomorphisme preuves-programmes, ce renversement ne s'imposera qu'avec le tournant géométrique. Car, en fondant la logique  [...]

Thèse de doctorat

Software

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AKTONE System Lead dev

Samuel Tronçon

AKTONE is a distributed and data-driven informational system and dev framework for data-science and fast prototyping applications in social sciences. It consists in a 3 levels DEVOPS architecture of tools, libraries and : - an adaptative servers fleet with automated scripts for maintenance, bots control, back-end operations, - a set of heterogeneous databases systems controlled with abstract models implementation, - a set of heterogeneous softaware systems controlled by the core framework, implementing open source libraries of various languages (PHP, Python, Javascript, D3.js, Node, Shell Scri  [...]

KOIKOI Machine Learning Experiment

KOIKOI Machine Learning Experiment Lead dev

Samuel Tronçon

KOIKOI is an algorithm based on some of my previous articles in Theoretical Computer Science, and inspired by the work of Jean-Yves Girard, namely his reconstruction of logic known as "Ludics". KOIKOI is specially designed for machine learning and simulation, with an underlying process of 'learning by interaction' similar to the social process of "learning by means of other's interpretation of actions and reactions". The core algorithm of KOIKOI is presented in the book 'Mathématique du dialogue', written with Christophe Fouqueré, Myriam Quatrini, Alain Lecomte and Pierre Livet. Koikoi is t  [...]

e-COOPILOT platform

e-COOPILOT platform Lead dev

Samuel Tronçon

e-coopilot is a software infrastructure to assist stakeholders in participatory processes, from citizens to managers and politicians, to the governance and management of territorialized socio-environmental systems. e-ccopilot is the result of the collaboration between the CoOPLAaGE team of INRAE and RR&D.

Research projects

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PIA Littoral + (Action AATRE) Partner

2019-2024  Région Occitanie

Initiated by the Occitanie Region and the Parliament of the Sea, in connection with the actors of the territory and various partners from the economic world and the world of research, the Littoral + project carries the ambition to make the Occitanie coast more resilient in the face of to increasingly diverse forms of vulnerability (demographic, economic, ecological and climatic, etc.) In response to these risks and challenges, the project must help promote the development and resilience of the coastline through innovation, with the implementation of new actions or practices tested with and fo  [...]

AATRE

XXIVè Rencontres de Rochebrune sur les systèmes complexes Coordinator

2017  Samuel Tronçon

The 24th edition of the international meetings on natural and artificial complex systems, organized by Samuel Tronçon, was devoted to the theme of “processes and dynamics”. These two notions share the fact of being both at the center of the researcher's questioning when it comes to his or her object of study (spatial and social dynamics, cognitive and physical processes, morphogenesis and evolution), and at the heart of research practices. , particularly in the permanent interaction with the IT "context" (algorithmic methods, data capture, visualization and simulations). The field of inve  [...]

XXIV Rencontres deRochebrune

FP7 LIBEAC : Liberalism in Between Europe And China Partner

2013-2017  Jean-Yves Heurtebise

The LIBEAC project is among the few elite projects selected by the Research Executive Agency (REA) of the European Commission inside the Seventh Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development (FP7-PCRD).
This International Research Staff Exchange Scheme aims at improving international mobility of researchers among the world and especially between European countries and Third Countries partners in order to foster the emergence of multidisciplinary and multicultural research network.
The pojects involves international partners : AIX-MARSEILLE UNIVERSITE (AMU), RR&D LAB  [...]

ANR LOCI : Locativity and interaction in Logic, Computer Science and Linguistics. Partner

2010-2013  Alain Lecomte

As coordinator of the third workpackage : "Social interactions and language learning".
LOCI was an international research program funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche with Roma Tre Università, INRIA, Aix-Marseille Université, Université PAris 8, Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris-Nord and RR&D Lab.

LOCI consortium

ANR PRELUDE : Toward pragmatics based on Ludics Theory and Continuations 2nd coordinator

2007-2010  Alain Lecomte

PRELUDE was an international research program funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-BLANC) wich aim is to "give a significant boost to ambitious projects which position themselves favorably in international competition and which present original objectives, breaking with well-marked research routes". With Roma Tre Università, INRIA, Aix-Marseille Université, Université Paris 8, Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris-Nord.

PRELUDE consortium

Logic and interaction: towards a cognitive geometry (LIGC group) Coordinator

2002-2007  Samuel Tronçon

Co-founder of the group with Pierre Livet (Philosopher) and Jean-Yves Girard (Mathematician).
Co-organizer of three editions of the seminar.
LIGC brings together philosophers and scientists from various backgrounds (mainly specialists in Mathematical Logic, Theoretical Computer Science, and Philosophy of Logic). The group intends to develop a common philosophical reflection on the impact of recent metamorphoses of logic in the context of its dialogue with theoretical computer science and, by transitivity, with other disciplines (physics, biology, linguistics...).
Main members : Jea  [...]

LIGC group

Contemporary Art

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Journey to the west

Journey to the west Producer

2013  Tsai Ming-Liang

A film by Tsai Ming Liang, with Lee Kang-Sheng And Denis Lavant. Resuming the Buddhist walking ritual some several centuries old, a monk walks extremely slowly in the busy streets of Marseille and Noailles' market.
Producers : House on Fire, Neon Productions, Groupe Résurgences.
The film has been made during a creative residency in Marseille, produced by Résurgences and Samuel Tronçon, granted by the PACA Region and the Bouches du Rhone Council, under the coordination of the Marseille Provence 2013, European Capital of Culture.

Unifrance Database
Artwar(e) : computer assisted art curating

Artwar(e) : computer assisted art curating Author

2009-2013  Christophe Bruno, Samuel Tronçon

A platform for assets management and computer-assisted curating in contemporary Art. The artistic project was about the life-cycle of creative objects, their emergence and obsolescence, and how plagiarism and import-export play essential roles in art history. The aim of Artwar(e) is mapping the circulation of value in the arts.
Creation at the Centre d'Art des Capucins, Embrun, 2010. Exhibitions and conferences at Share Festival Torino 2010, Bibliothèque Nationale de France 2009, Le CENTQUATRE-PARIS 2010, Ecole d'Art d'annecy 2010, Centre Pompidou 2010, Jeu De Paume 2011, Bibliothèque N  [...]

Mémoire d'Outre-Mer

Mémoire d'Outre-Mer Producer

1998  Claude Bossion

Mémoire d'Outremer retraces moments of life taken over the course of events in the former French colonies, between the 1920s and 1960s. These authors, fathers of families, doctors or soldiers, make us discover through their images the intimacy of their life. From this intimate space emanates a strange atmosphere between fascination and repulsion, which transcribes well the complexity and ambiguity of the relationship between colonists and colonized peoples.

Circuit-Court Productions
Chroniques Urbaines

Chroniques Urbaines Producer

1997  Claude Bossion

Claude Bossion, filmmaker and documentary filmmaker, has filmed for four years in the northern districts of Marseille, observing the daily life of the inhabitants, the development of urban projects, questioning politics on its functioning, in particular on the place which is left to the inhabitants in the decision-making, exposing amateur images of the district, in the eyes of contemporaries, thus questioning the future of these districts. Through the words of the inhabitants and the actors of these changes (technicians or politicians) the films update the social and cultural dynamics that hav  [...]

Circuit-Court Productions
New-York Memories

New-York Memories Text author

1996  Claude Bossion

This short movie is an experiment on collective memory and an inner dialogue by the film-maker, Claude Bossion : what is filming? What is a film-maker? and how banal images can reach a powerful level of imagination. With participation of Pierre Clémenti, Judith Malina, Jonas Mekas, Jerome Charyn.

Circuit-Court Productions

Editorial projects

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Ouvrir la logique au monde : Philosophie et mathématiques de l'interaction

Ouvrir la logique au monde : Philosophie et mathématiques de l'interaction Editor

Ce volume rassemble une partie des exposés donnés lors de l'Ecole thématique du CNRS «Logique, Sciences et Philosophie », organisée par Jean-Baptiste Joinet, qui s'est tenue au Centre Culturel International de Cerisy-la-Salle, du 19 au 26 septembre 2006, à  l'initiative du groupe «Logique et Interaction : Géométrie de la Cognition » (LIGC). LIGC est un collectif qui regroupe une quarantaine de philosophes et de scientifiques d'horizons divers (physiciens, biologistes, linguistes, mathématiciens, informaticiens). Il est l'héritier du groupe interdisciplinaire LMP (Logique Math  [...]

Editions Hermann
Ludics, dialogue and interactions

Ludics, dialogue and interactions Editor

The articles collected in this volume are based on contributions to workshops and meetings that were held within the context of the PRELUDE project. PRELUDE, an acronym for ``Towards Theoretical Pragmatics based on Ludics and Continuation Theory'', ran from November, 2006 to November, 2009, with funding from the new French National Agency for Research (ANR). The objective of the project was to develop perspectives on Natural Language Semantics and Pragmatics based on recent developments in Logic and Theoretical Computer Science.

Editions Springer
Jeux de langage et raison communcationnelle : le statut de l'incompréhension dans le langage

Jeux de langage et raison communcationnelle : le statut de l'incompréhension dans le langage Publisher

L'incompréhension demeure à ce jour «l'impensé de la pragmatique». L'ambition de cet ouvrage est de combler cette insuffisance théorique. Peut-on, et comment, envisager l'incompréhension comme un phénomène propre à l'interaction communicationnelle? Si nos jeux de langage effectifs donnent parfois lieu à l'incompréhension, alors elle n'est pas à voir comme l'irruption de l'irrationnel mais plutôt comme une manifestation autre de la raison communicationnelle, conçue sur un modèle autre que celui de la raison logos. C'est du moins d'hypothèse qui oriente cette réflexion, s'appuy  [...]

Editions Accatone/Résurgences
Des enfants d'Afrique de l'Ouest parlent de la maladie, des soins et de l'hôpital

Des enfants d'Afrique de l'Ouest parlent de la maladie, des soins et de l'hôpital Publisher

Les enfants sont les plus nombreux « usagers» de l’hôpital. Les soins qui leur sont administrés sont « leur » chance et souvent ils permettent leur guérison. Mais ils sont aussi souvent la cause d’autres douleurs, celles des injections, des ponctions, des pansements, des immobilisations auxquelles s’ajoutent des souffrances affectives lorsque ces enfants ne peuvent exprimer leurs questions et leurs craintes ou pensent qu’ils sont une charge inutile pour leurs parents. Face aux adultes et aux soignants, les enfants restent souvent silencieux. Mais ils observent, écoutent, pe  [...]

Editions Accatone/Résurgences
Décider de sa vie et construire sa famille. Réfléchir ensemble pour améliorer la santé maternelle.

Décider de sa vie et construire sa famille. Réfléchir ensemble pour améliorer la santé maternelle. Publisher

Ce livre a été écrit pour servir de support pédagogique pour l'éducation sexuelle et la prévention des risques, notamment pour la santé maternelle, des adolescents dans les pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest. Il a été conçu à partir des résultats d'une enquête réalisée en Afrique de l'Ouest par l'association "Women health education programme" et l'unité mixte internationale de recherche "Environnement, santé, sociétés", dans le cadre du programme "Pratiques d'acteurs dans le domaine de la planification familiale". Il a été réalisé sous la direction de Yannick Jaffré (EHESS), éd  [...]

Editions Accatone/Résurgences
Enfance et malnutrition au Nord du Togo : Réflexions anthropologiques sur les dimensions sociales de la nutrition dans les régions de Kara et des Savanes

Enfance et malnutrition au Nord du Togo : Réflexions anthropologiques sur les dimensions sociales de la nutrition dans les régions de Kara et des Savanes Publisher

L’UNICEF, préoccupée par cette question nutritionnelle depuis de très nombreusesannées, a jugé indispensable de prendre le temps de comprendre et pour cela de financerune étude portant sur ces questions de nutrition dans les régions du Nord Togo.Pour tenter de répondre au plus juste à cette proposition, notre équipe de recherche s’est attachée à décrire, non pas des « cas de malnutrition », mais à analyser une situation alimentaire dans des contextes écologiques et socioculturels spécifiques. Aucun jugement n’est porté ni sur les programmes engagés ni sur les conduite  [...]

Editions Accatone/Résurgences