Perhaps it is high time for a xeno-architecture to match

Xeno-architecture is not a description of the given but a speculative concept that will only show itself in and from the future. The curatorial and research platform Perhaps it is high time for a xeno-architecture to match invites philosopher Armen Avanessian and architect Markus Miessen to discuss the possibilities of “xeno-architecture” and reflect upon how spatial practice, by embracing alienation, may open up a larger space for the (as yet) unknown. By turning away from "what is" toward "what could be”, is it possible to build an architecture (of knowing) that can deal with today’s overwhelming complexity and global unrest?

This evening is a speculative sense event investigating how space can be understood differently. How does smell influence space, what is its sound? In an experimental attempt to abductively produce something “other,” we witness the development of new knowledge in the making. Embracing a process of poetic encounters, philosopher Armen Avanessian and architect Markus Miessen host scent artist Beau Rhee (New York), noise artist Mattin (Bilbao/Berlin) and video artists Tim Tsang & Parches (Los Angeles) to live-explore the potentiality of a xeno-architecture.

• Armen Avanessian (AT) is a philosopher, literary theorist, and political theorist. He has been a Visiting Fellow in the German Department at Columbia University and in the German Department at Yale University and visiting professor at various art academies in Europe and the USA. He is editor at large at Merve Verlag Berlin. Amongst others he is the author of Irony and the Logic of Modernity (DeGruyter); Overwrite. Ethics of Knowledge – Poetics of Existence (Sternberg), Miamification (Merve) and Present Tense. A Poetics and Metanoia (together with Anke Hennig, Bloomsbury).

• Markus Miessen (DE) is a Berlin-based architect, writer, and Professor at the Academy of Design, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The initiator of the Participation tetralogy, his work revolves around questions of critical spatial practice, institution building, and spatial politics. Amongst many other books and writings, Miessen is the author of The Nightmare of Participation and Crossbenching (both Sternberg Press, Berlin).

• Perhaps it is high time for a xeno-architecture to match is a Brussels-based curatorial and research platform, initiated by Lietje Bauwens, Wouter De Raeve and Alice Haddad, that seeks to examine the possibilities for re-radicalizing spatial practice. The dynamic relationship between research and practice constitutes both the form and matter of this project, which results in a series of cultural productions and collaborations.