Nicolas Schöffer

de Arnauld Pierre

Hungarian-born French artist Nicolas Schoeffer (1912-1992), though relatively unknown today, was during his lifetime a significant presence in the art world. His 1956 piece CYSP 1 is considered the first cybernetic sculpture, making use of motors, microphones, and photo-electric cells to create a work based on feedback loops and responsiveness to its environment. For Schoeffer, cybernetics enabled a crucial artistic exploration of the boundary between the living and the technological. This important reevaluation of Schoeffer's work features sculptures, paintings, and drawings, including unpublished pieces from the artist's studio and archive, as well as documentation of his interdisciplinary and experimental collaborations with architects, musicians, choreographers, scientists, and industrialists. Particular attention is paid to the innovative work he created between 1945 and 1975, which takes on particular resonance in our current, digitally saturated world.