Montreal Cultural Calendar

Explores the social transformations associated with digital creativity, in a context where immersive technologies (virtual reality, augmented reality, 360° immersive installations, etc.), video games (commercial, experimental, artistic, etc.), and special effects (animation, compositing, 3D, etc.) occupy an increasingly central place in our cultural practices, imaginaries, and ways of life. Research creation provides a privileged framework for rethinking digital creativity and its social impacts. It offers a space where creative practices become modes of analysis, where works function as critical devices, and where processes themselves reveal the socio technical dynamics shaping our digital environments. The symposium is open to the public. Hybrid. Bilingual. Organized by the Chaire de recherche en économie créative et mieux-être (CREAT), in collaboration with the Hexagram Network, and is presented as part of the 2026 Interdisciplinary Encounters.

Speaker Craig Kaplan (University of Waterloo) discusses deep questions in tiling theory, including Heesch's problem (how many times a non-tiler may be surrounded by copies of itself), the isohedral number problem (how many transitivity classes a shape may force upon its periodic tilings), and the einstein problem (a single shape forced to tile non-periodically). Discussion of mathematical and computational research and generalizations to multiple shapes.