Diller Scofidio+Renfro: Exit

The exhibition is presented by the Fondation Cartier at the Palais de Tokyo, on the occasion of the Cop21, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change.

Based on a prompt set out by French philosopher and urbanist Paul Virilio, this experimental work was created by American artists and architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with architect-artist Laura Kurgan and statistician-artist Mark Hansen with a core team of scientists and geographers for the exhibition Native Land, Stop Eject in 2008, and is now part of the Fondation Cartier collection.

Exit is composed of a series of immersive animated maps generated by data that investigate human migrations today and their leading causes, including the impacts of climate change. Its complete 2015 update has been planned to coincide with the pivotal Paris-based United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21).

A crucial opportunity to limit global warming, the COP21 provides a powerful context in which to consider the issues at the heart of Exit: “It’s almost as though the sky, and the clouds in it and the pollution of it, were making their entry into history. Not the history of the seasons, summer, autumn, winter, but of population flows, of zones now uninhabitable for reasons that aren’t just to do with desertification, but with disappearance, with submersion of land. This is the future.” (Paul Virilio, 2009)

Exit, 2008–2015. Scenario “Political Refugees and Forced Migration” Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris © Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mark Hansen, Laura Kurgan, and Ben Rubin, in collaboration with Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Stewart Smith

Exit, 2008–2015. Scenario “Natural Disasters” Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris © Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mark Hansen, Laura Kurgan, and Ben Rubin, in collaboration with Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Stewart Smith

Commissioned by the Fondation Cartier at a time when human migration flows began to take place on an unprecedented scale, Exit was first shown in its space at the end of 2008 as part of the exhibition Native Land, Stop Eject, and subsequently at the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen during the COP15 in 2009, and at the inauguration of the Alhóndiga Bilbao, Bilbao in 2010.

Exit, 2008–2015. Scenario “Speechless and Deforestation” Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris © Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mark Hansen, Laura Kurgan, and Ben Rubin, in collaboration with Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Stewart Smith

Conceived as an artwork, Exit uses geo-coded data that was collected from over 100 sources, processed through a programming language and interpreted visually. The work is a reflection on the notions of being rooted and uprooted, as well as related questions of identity, Native Land addressed issues that have continued to intensify. The current asylum crisis makes the 2015 presentation of Exit more timely and relevant than ever.

Exit, 2008–2015. Scenario “Rising Seas, Sinking Cities” Collection Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris © Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mark Hansen, Laura Kurgan, and Ben Rubin, in collaboration with Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Stewart Smith

until 10 January 2016
Exit
An idea by Paul Virilio, a dynamic cartography created by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mark Hansen, Laura Kurgan and Ben Rubin 
In collaboration with Robert Gerard Pietrusko and Stewart Smith
Palais de Tokyo
Paris

Diller Scofidio+Renfro: Exit

The exhibition is presented by the Fondation Cartier at the Palais de Tokyo, on the occasion of the Cop21, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change.

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