R&Sie(n)’s Dandy & Mutant A-life Architecture
by Joseph Nechvatal
R&Sie(n)’s exhibition “I’ve heard about…©” opened on the 6th of July at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris‘s temporary space at the Couvent des Cordeliers - and I think it is one of the most relevant exhibitions to what is going on in art today that is of importance. R&Sie(n) is an investigational architectural firm consisting of François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, and Jean Navarro; working here with Benoît Durandin. Together, they utilize generative heterogeneous mutations in the creation of proposed utopian city spaces. In fact what they propose at the Musee d’Art Moderne is the artificial growing of extruded urban housing (generative & robotic) - where new cities are constructed via robotic processes by feeding off the carcasses of older dying cities. Very viral. Envisioned is an approach to city planning based on growth scripts and open algorithmic procedures. Towards these ends the show itself includes some subtle audio tracts, model-sculptures, a fully immersive hypnosis chamber with video monitors, booking services, 3D movies and robotic drawings/plans that reveal the source code of the generative program at the heart of their work.
I missed it in the theaters last year, (in case it ever was in the theaters), but last night I screened Michael Winterbottom's flim-before-film-before-last & I think it cements his status as my fave working director right now. It's called "Code 46" & it is something I'd never contemplated & wasn't sure was even possible, a cyberpunk love story.
The sixth anniversary of the 
Experimental music presents a curious model for thinking about political art. Political sloganeering and symbolic gestures must be immediately rejected as they exist in the realms of representation that this art form attempts to bypass.
