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

La « xéno-architecture » n’est pas un phénomène existant, mais un concept spéculatif qui se présente à nous depuis le futur. Invités par la plateforme de recherche Perhaps it is high time for a xeno-architecture to match, le philosophe Armen Avanessian et l’architecte Markus Miessen interrogent comment la pratique spatiale peut encourager un processus d’aliénation qui permette de laisser davantage de place à l’inconnu. En se détournant de l’existant et en visant ce qui pourrait être, ils abordent la construction d’une architecture (de connaissance) qui puisse se confronter à la complexité du monde actuel.

Plutôt que de mener une réflexion sur la pratique spatiale, nous célébrons la contingence comme moyen d’exploration en temps réel d’une xéno-architecture. Sens et connaissance se rencontrent dans cette production collaborative qui accueille pour l’occasion les interventions audio-visuelles, olfactives et performatives des artistes Tim Tsang & Parches (Los Angeles), Beau Rhee (New York) et Mattin (Bilbao/Berlin).

• 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.