En vert et contre tout

The ‘green’ has become the paradoxical double of the human, his Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, at a time of generalized greening that hyper-compensates for our increasing technical manipulations of living systems, ecologies and the biosphere.

With a series of performances, installations, lectures at the Générateur and workshops and interactions in the laboratories of the École polytechnique, Jens Hauser’s curatorial proposal contrasts notions of liveliness and naturalness with those of artificiality and toxicity. Based on the complex installation Shadows from the Walls of Death by Adam Brown, winner of the Prix Ars Electronica 2023, the performative synthesis of toxic green pigments, the interplay of shadows and nanoparticles, and the prospective of a Homo Photosyntheticus that will no longer eat

Through En vert et contre tout, as part of the biennale NEMO, le Générateur extends its partnership with la Chaire arts & sciences de l’École polytechnique, le center SPIRAL de l’Institut Polytechnique de Paris which constitutes its extension, and l’association OU /ERT. Interrogating the links between art and science in contemporary creation remains a more than topical line of research; this approach was deployed for the first time during the event De la performance à la microperformativité presented in April 2023 in this same space.

Friday, December 15: Participatory demonstrations and workshops

From 9:30 am to 5:30 pm > CNRS-École Polytechnique, Centre SPIRAL
91128 Palaiseau 

Number of participants limited to 24, register by email to lucie.travaille@legenerateur.com until 12/12/2023.
Please mention your name, profession/affiliation, and 1-2 sentence/s about your motivation with the workshop group of your choice (only one possible):

Group 1 : Bioremediation + In silico inflatable + Red against the green.
Group 2 : The green of revolt + Volvox + Vers de Roscoff + Making exoskeletons.

All workshops, with the exception of the French writing workshop “Le vert de la révolte qui déborde!”, are bilingual French/English.

20h > Le Générateur
94250 Gentilly  

Shadows from the Walls of Death (1^ère partie)
Performative installation by‘Adam Brown (with Rebekah Blesing)

Adam Brown deconstructs the symbolic and superficial use of green, supposedly synonymous with ecological and plant health. By synthesizing a highly toxic pigment, ” Paris green”, in an aestheticized and functional multimedia laboratory, the performance ironically re-establishes the link between the color green and humans. Far from images of an idealized pastoral nature, the performance Shadows from the Walls of Death (Les Ombres des murs de la mort) is inspired by chemist Robert Kedzie, who wrote a book of the same title in 1874 with the aim of raising public awareness of the dangers of arsenic-pigmented wallpaper.

Saturday, December 16: Colloquium, thesis defense and performative actions

From 10am to 10pm > Le Générateur
94250 Gentilly

From 10am to 1pm

The richness of ordinary chatter. Engaging different encounter processes through scientific practice and plant mediation.
Public and performative thesis defense of Anouk Daguin.
Thesis supervisor: Jean-Marc Chomaz (Research Director, CNRS, École polytechnique).
Co-supervisor: Mr Patrick Perré (Professor CentraleSupelec, Université Paris-Saclay).
Jury : Rapporteur M. Pascal Nicolas Le Strat, rapporteur Mme Nathalie Machon (Professeur Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle), examiner Mme Myriam Suchet (Maître de conférences Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3), examiner Mme Claire Gauzente (Professeur, Université de Nantes).

Anouk Daguin explores the creation of plant-mediated encounters and the use of scientific processes and instruments. Moments of sharing are born in various contexts such as EHPADs and artistic institutions. Revealing the inner richness of each individual, these exchanges encourage the sharing of experiences and scientific gestures, recreating a contemporary form of “doing together”. Each encounter becomes a shared artistic act. Anouk Daguin invites you here to her thesis defense imagined as a performance becoming, in a second stage, participative and gustatory around sugar beet.

2:00 pm Symposium En vert et contre tout / In green and against all odds

2:00 PM – Jens Hauser (FR):
Green growth? Towards a general chlorophobia

2:30pm – Adam Brown (EN):
Shadows from the Walls of Death: Re-Mediating Green

3:00 PM – Carole Ecoffet (FR):
Flashing green!

3:30 pm – Eva Maria Lopez (FR):
Paper Trees and other green studies

4:30 pm – Maya Minder (FR):
Green Open Food Evolution: Becoming Homo Photosyntheticus. Re-futuring a possible food future

5:00 pm – Ewen Chardronnet (FR):
Homo Photosyntheticus Lab – Roscosmoe: Why did the sea worm want to go into space?

5:30pm – Disnovation.org (Maria Roszkowska & Nicolas Maigret) (FR):
La Part Solaire : Une monnaie solaire comestible performances

6:00 pm – Claire Gauzente (FR): 
Making work outside the radical monopoly? On the possibility of a decreasing art

6:30pm – Jens Hauser & Julie Navarro (FR):
La Chasse au Vert

Symposium in French and English, without simultaneous translation

20h

Shadows from the Walls of Death (2^th part)
Performative installation by‘Adam Brown (with Rebekah Blesing)

Continuation and conclusion of Adam Brown’s performed experiments in his laboratory. Declensions around the questions of microorganisms, detoxifying plants, phytoremediation and the exclusively human gaze to represent “nature”. By exploring the properties of extremophilic bacteria and sunflowers, the artist attempts to detoxify Van Gogh’s mythical motifs using extremophilic bacteria and sunflowers.