The Lotus, from Spirituality to Hypertechnology

An ancestral symbol of spirituality, the lotus is nowadays an emblem of the technological revolution. From the shores of the Ganges to French research laboratories, from the summit of Mount Fuji to the Institute for Bionics in Berlin, we discover the "lotus effect" and its surprising hydrophobic properties which incite new scientific approaches: bionics, nanoscience, physionics, etc.

Never has nature nor its structures stimulated our imagination so much. Intelligent surfaces for the automobile or building industry, miniaturized medical laboratories on chips… Innumerable, tremendous and unsuspected application fields are now open. However, such innovations are mainly reserved to our Western "high-tech" world. Has the lotus, symbol of creation and of inner paths to knowledge in Eastern culture, become yet another avatar of material culture in our hands? Researchers, landscapers and botanists guide us towards these new scientific borders whilst pondering over such a paradox.

Selected at Pariscience 2010
See the showing : Saturday 09th October 2010 from 13h00 to 14h30